


Marisa's Summer Camp

by IcedFairy



Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:19:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1643564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcedFairy/pseuds/IcedFairy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lured by the promise of massive profits, Marisa accepts three young witches for a "summer camp."  As one might expect, the prospective campers are less the thrilled.  Though they may find the Forest of Magic is not your standard camp, and Marisa is not the standard camp adviser.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Helena!  Get up.  If you don’t wake soon you’ll be late.”  
  
Helena groaned and tried to pretend she hadn’t heard those words.  Normally she was fine with waking up in the morning but…  
  
“Helena.”  Her grandmother’s voice was stern.  “You’re going today no matter what.  The only question is if you’ll have packed what you want to bring instead of just what you need.”  
  
“I packed yesterday.”  Giving up on the pretense of sleep, Helena rolled out of her bed and faced her mother and grandmother.   “And I still don’t know why I need to do this mother.  What’s the point of this summer camp nonsense?  You’re both better than that witch, and Gensoukyo’s just some backwater realm.  Not like our Nova Thiva.  Why not send me to the countryside instead?”  
  
“Hmph.  You’re going precisely because it is a backwater.”  Her grandma snorted.  “The only danger you face in the countryside is wagging tongues and jilted lovers blaming you for selling potions.  And the wilds would eat you up without a second thought.”  Grandma shook her head.  “No no.  This Gensoukyo seems a much better place for you to learn the basics of being a witch.”  
  
Her mother nodded and Helena’s hopes of escaping the trip fell back into Hades.  “And this Marisa girl seems like a fine tutor.  She was apparently handling the local god spawn at quite the young age, not that she’s much older than you now.  Worthless as an advanced teacher, of course, but a perfect short term guardian.”  
  
Helena sighed deeply and headed to her closet.  “Fine.  Let me get dressed.”  
  
After they finally left her in peace she changed into one of the few outfits that wasn’t already packed and grabbed some of her charms and talismans that she didn’t want to just stuff away.  She was thankful at least that her witch outfits were acceptable clothing for this trip.  Nova Thiva fashion tended to be variants on the peplos, but Helena preferred more modern wear.  
  
Sighing again she stared down at the travel bag as if glaring at it could make it disappear.  Well admittedly, Helena could make it disappear, but her mother could just magic it back, so it would be no use.  
  
Eventually she gave in to the inevitable and grabbed the bag.  Hopefully she’d at least get out of the house without too much of a fuss.  
  
Her hopes ended up being in vain.  The whole family turned up to see her off, complete with a sacrifice to Hestia and Hermes, in addition to Hecate.  And every one of them had some piece of advice to give her, most of which she already knew, and all of which she forgot.  As the well-wishing dragged on so long she eventually started looking forward to leaving.  A little.  
  
The journey was staggeringly anticlimactic.  Her grandmother cast a simple spell, and suddenly they were in a forest.  Looking around Helena didn’t see too much different from the forests of home, other than the types of trees and the number of mushrooms.  A simple cottage sat nearby.  
  
“Ah!  It’s Helena!”  
  
She turned to see the familiar faces of Lyudmila and Kseniya Doroshenko.  As two of the few magicians her age Helena ran into them often at events.  Lyudmila looked just as annoyed to be here as she was, which made sense.  The Slavic witch was pretty reasonable, even if she was a year younger then Helena.  Kseniya on the other hand was peering around like this was some grand adventure.  She hoped she didn’t get pulled into babysitting duty on the young girl.  “Hello,” she said.  Lyudmila nodded grimly in reply.  
  
The two girl’s parents bowed to her grandmother.  “Honored matron Aoede.  It is a pleasure.”  
  
“The pleasure is mine,” her grandma replied.  “I’m glad to see my little Helena will be in good company.”  
  
“Oh hey, you’re all here.”  
  
Helena looked up to see Marisa circling in for a landing on, of all things, an actual broom.  While Helena wore witch's robes often, actually riding a broom was utterly unthinkable.  It was just so… old fashioned.  
  
The black white witch ignored the stares her odd flying garnered and simply landed.  “Welcome to Gensoukyo.  Traditionally we’re supposed to get in a fight right about now, but since y’all are paying me, and the kids don’t know danmaku we’ll skip that.”  Marisa smiled.  “Instead let me show you the place you kids will be staying.”  
  
Helena blinked as the older witch began to walk towards the cottage.  “We’re staying there?”  
  
“Yep!”  Marisa glibly ignored Helena’s disbelieving tone.  “I hear it’s traditional to use tents and all, but that’s not exactly the best idea with all the youkai wandering about.  So I cleaned out this little place and replaced the wards for you kids.”  Marisa opened the door and waved everyone in.  “Come on, I’ll give you all the tour, such as it is.”  
  
Helena looked up at her Grandma, but the woman’s expression indicated she’d find no solace there.  Sighing, she forced herself past Marisa and looked around the living room.  The floor was covered with strange reed mats, a couple of chairs and tables were the extent of the furniture, and there wasn’t even a hearth.  The back door obviously led to a food storehouse of some sort, while the other led to a hallway.  
  
“Kinda primitive,” Lyudmila muttered as the other girl walked in next to her.  
  
“It is supposed to be a camp dear,” Lyudmila’s mom said.  
  
Helena and Lyudmila looked at each other again and sighed.  Kseniya on the other hand ran to the hallway.  “Ah!  It has three beds!  Wow!”  
  
“Well that’s something,” Lyudmila said.  
  
Helena gave her friend a disbelieving look.  “You don’t have your own bed?”  
  
“Not everyone’s magical realm comes with a city filled with architects,” Lyudmila muttered.  
  
“It seems a very solid building,” Mr Doroshenko said.  “But I didn’t sense any wards.  How good is the protection?”  
  
Marisa laughed.  “Ah well, I stole most of the wards from Reimu so they only activate on hostile intent.  Don’t wanna fry the friendly spirits after all.  You probably don’t notice them because they’re spiritual wards.”  
  
Grandma nodded.  “A very good protection.  Eastern religion to keep Eastern chimera in check.”  
  
“I’ve also got something of a reputation myself,” Marisa said proudly.  “So if I say a place is off limits people tend to pretend to listen.”  Helena slumped as the black white witch’s smug gaze fell upon her.  “Still, you kids will have to beat off the less deadly troublemakers on your own.  That’s part of the fun though, right?”  
  
“How can that be considered fun?” Helena muttered.  
  
“Seriously, banishing goblins is booooring,” Lyudmila whined.  
  
Marisa chuckled.  “Good thing you won’t have to deal with those then.  You get to banish tanuki, karakasa and fairies instead.  But we’ll go over that later, after you’ve settled in a bit.”  
  
The woman paused to brush off some lint before heading towards the kitchen stores.  “Anyway the food’s here.  We’ll restock weekly but there should be enough for three girls, even if you all are still growing.  I’ll be helping you with meals for a while until you get the hang of the ingredients.  And I made a deal with Sakuya so you can have some homey food every week as well.”  Helena perked up a little at that.  She was afraid she’d be kept away from yogurt and lamb meat all summer in this backwater.  
  
Marisa paused then turned to face all of them.  “Oh yeah, don’t think it’ll be an issue, but I probably should ask.  You okay with eating human, or should I tell Sakuya to just save that for the youkai?”  
  
Helena grimaced.  Eating human flesh was something that appeared in a few of the darker rituals, but her family didn’t keep many of those spells.  Lyudmila on the other hand looked insulted.  “Do we look like hagkin?” Lyudmila asked harshly.  
  
Lyudmila’s mother put a hand on her shoulder.  “Now now dear, they can’t know what that means in our realm.”  
  
“Nah it’s cool,” Marisa replied with a smile.  “I swear, the gals around here all seem to think I’m weird for ignoring the stuff, but if you ask me they’re the weird ones.  Anyway I’ll tell Sakuya to serve us real food.  You don’t need to worry about her breaking that promise.  She’s still human, sorta.”  
  
As the adults started asking Marisa about “activities” and “schedules” Helena walked over to the hallway.  The bedroom looked decently sized at least, and there was an interior bath and a toilet.  It was at least a step up from a tent in the woods.  Though she still thought it was barbaric to not have a hearth.  
  
Lyudmila moved to her side.  “Kseniya, stop making a fool of yourself.”  
  
Kseniya pouted before flopping down on one of the beds.  “Hmph.  Fine, I won’t tell you which beds are the good beds!”  
  
“Oh come on, there isn’t going to be a difference in beds,” Lyudmila said with a roll of her eyes.  
  
“I’m surprised she was able to find three beds on short notice,” Helena muttered as she looked over the furniture.  There was a little placard on the head which read ‘Eientei Recovery Ward.’  Strange.  Marisa must have bought spares off of them.  
  
“Well are you settling down Helena dear?”  
  
She looked up to see Grandma standing in the hallway.  “If I say no can I spend the summer in Crete instead?”  
  
“No,” Grandma said with a smile.  “Now, we must be off.  Try not to give Marisa here too much trouble.”  
  
“Hey, don’t spoil my fun before the camp’s even started,” called Marisa from the main room.  Helena ground her teeth at how childish her new ‘teacher’ was acting.  
  
Mr and Ms Doroshenko stepped in and hugged Lyudmila and Kiseniya.  “Now Kseniya, you have fun.  And Lyudmila you keep an eye on your little sister,” Ms Doroshenko said.  
  
“Yes mother,” the two replied with varying levels of enthusiasm.  
  
They all headed off to the front of the little cabin, where the two families each set up their teleport rituals.  The finality of it was all starting to sink into Helena’s mind as Grandma finished up the sleek lines of the ritual circle.  Even Kseniya’s good cheer was fading.  “Remember to write every week,” Grandma said.  
  
And then they were gone.  
  
Helena looked around the strange forest that was going to be her new home for the next three months.  The trees were a mix of reasonable maples and strange pines.  There were mushrooms and lichen everywhere.  And the whole area simmered with a strange magical power.  
  
“This is going to suck,” she sighed.  
  
“So gloomy.  I thought Greece was supposed to be sunny and stuff.”  Helena looked back as her ‘guardian,’ Marisa, spoke.  “You kids need to learn how to brighten up a bit.  Which, in fact, will be our first activity!”  
  
“Huh,” Kseniya turned to join the conversation, her expression shifting to confusion.  “You’re going to teach us a light spell?  But we know those.”  
  
Marisa laughed and pulled out a card.  “Well, it is technically a light spell, but I’m sure you haven’t seen this one before.  Watch and learn kids.  ‘Orreries Sun!’”  
  
The three young girls all hopped back as a mystic rune formed around Marisa’s feet, then four colored orbs spun out around her.  The witch woman pointed towards the sky, and the orbiting spheres began a colorful barrage of lasers and bullets.  Helena gaped at the sight.  She knew instinctively that a powerful witch could do this, but she’d never seen anyone actually perform the feat.  
  
After a bit Marisa closed her hand and the spell faded away.  “One of my first cards, though I’ve improved it a lot.  That’ll be the first thing we learn.”  
  
“Wait, you’re teaching us an attack spell first thing?” Lyudmila asked incredulously.  Helena nodded in agreement.  It seemed too dangerous.  Sure Marisa made a big deal about being childish and irresponsible, but there was no way an adult could be that out of it!  
  
“I’m teaching you danmaku,” Marisa said simply.  The woman adjusted her hat and her face became serious.  “The first rule is you don’t go anywhere in Gensoukyo without at least one spellcard you can use.  If anyone gives you trouble you demand a spellcard duel.  Winners can’t eat or seal the losers.  That’s the way we settle things here.  Heck most people will just start off slinging spellcards without the whole dueling nonsense.  So before you can wander about, you need a card to your name.”  
  
Helena frowned.  “But what happens if someone doesn’t use spellcards?  I mean, there are a lot of chimeras too stupid to use magic.”  
  
“We kill them,” Marisa replied flatly.  All three of the girls flinched at the declaration.  “If something threatens you and isn’t playing by the rules, slap it with the deadliest curses you can think of and run.  I’ll handle it from there.”  The three girls shuddered at Marisa’s cold reply.  Helena’s worries about being bored were starting to be replaced with more concrete fears…  
  
Marisa shook her head, then laughed.  “Ah don’t worry about it.  Most of the youkai who are too dumb to play along get killed off real fast.  Almost none of them are real threats.  You should worry more about getting laughed at by people for not having spell cards.  Even the fairies can manage that much.”  
  
“Um,” Kseniya raised her hand.  “So, how do we make the cards?  I don’t have any paper or pencils.”  
  
“The cards are magically created as part of the spell ritual that makes the attack non-lethal, Kseniya,” Lyudmila said.  “But how are we going to use your spell?  Aren’t spell cards supposed to be representations of people’s skill?  Shouldn’t we use our best spells?”  
  
“Good catch there kid,” Marisa replied.  “Nice to see one of you studied how we do things around here.  Anyway that’s the beauty of things.  I’m not going to be teaching you the spell.”  
  
Helena slumped and glared at their teacher.  “So how are we supposed to turn it into a spellcard?”  
  
“The same way I learned how to do it.  I’ll show you what you need to do and the basic framework for the spell.  You kids will finish the spell, customizing it to fit your own particular types of magic.”  Marisa held out her hand and a runic circle appeared over her hand.  “So gather round.  As you can tell the spell is based around the movement of the planets and stars…”  
  
Helena stepped forward as Marisa began her lecture.  “The important part of the spell is forming the orbs and getting them to orbit right.  Can’t build a solar system without planets.  That’s the innermost circle.  After that you just start them orbiting, that’s the surrounding circles.  Slap on some limits so the orbs don’t blow up and you should be good.  The stars will just spin out naturally.”  
  
Helena looked at the spell, then over to her fellow victims.  Lyudmila and Kseniya looked back at her with blank expressions.  This time it was Kseniya who broke the silence.  “But that doesn’t make sense at all.”  
  
“It makes perfect sense,” Marisa pouted.  “Look just grab the runes and fix it up how you all want.  Trust me it’ll work.”  
  
Sighing, Helena mentally traced the rune and looked over it.  At least the base spell itself made sense.  The orbiting was well defined and she could vaguely understand the formation spells, but the important details that made it a useful spell were covered by nonsense runes and ridiculous ideas.  She took a step back and constructed her own version, stripping out the useless bits.  Then she peered at the holes left over.  It was missing a proper definition for the planets, and some way of making the whole apparatus actually shoot something.  
  
Well the first part was at least easy.  She placed in the planets, Hermes, Aphrodite, Ares and Zeus.  The solid weight of the names made the spell seem more real in her mind.  Now from that how would she manage the attacks?  
  
Helena spent several minutes puzzling over stars and orbits and other nonsense before it hit her.  The purpose of the spell wasn’t specifically to shoot stars and lasers.  It was an attack spell, which meant it just had to shoot bullets.  She just had to get it to fire an attack of some sort.  
  
Carefully she wrote in runes connecting the planets to each of their elemental virtues.  She frowned as she got to Zeus, then scribbled in herself as the element of earth, before granting the giant planet quintessence as its element.  She looked over the figures again frowning, before scratching out the work and rewriting it as lightning.  Helena knew that lightning wasn’t a real element in any sense, but she wasn’t going to give Zeus the honored element of quintessence.  The planet was fine, but the god was generally insufferable.  
  
“That looks like something Patchy would do.”  Helena started and nearly lost the spell as Marisa spoke up behind her.  The older witch ignored her angry glare and peered over the runes.  “You’ll wanna fix up your bullets though.  Right now you’re just calling on elemental stuff.  You want to make it bullety.”  
  
“Bullety isn’t a word,” Helena muttered, but she looked over the spell anyway.  Maybe if she asked the spell to act as it should it would acquiesce.  It was worth a shot, right?  
  
As she scribbled in her final request the spell seemed to snap together all at once.  The rune glowed brightly, then seemed to meld itself into a small rectangle.  She reached out her hand, and plucked the card from the air.  The back was an intricate crossroad of vines, with three torches and a key hidden within the tangle.  She found liked the design, though it could probably use a touchup.  
  
As she finished studying the newly minted spellcard, Kseniya gasped then laughed as her own rune solidified.  “Ah!  I did it!”  
  
“Nice job,” Marisa said with a smile.  The older magician walked over to where Lyudmila was still scribbling.  “Huh?  You don’t need to fix the orbits there you know…”  
  
“Yes I do.  They’re sloppy,” Lyudmila replied before turning to the rune again.  “Besides I’m almost done.”  Sure enough within a few moments Lyudmila’s rune glowed and solidified into a card.  
  
Marisa smiled and lazily sat down on her broom like it was a fence.  “Good work all of you.  You’ve each got a card to your name, which means tomorrow we can start running around and doing the fun stuff.”  Marisa’s smile twisted into a smirk.  “But first we gotta test them.  Let’s see what you got!”  Marisa pointed across the clearing.  “Your target is that stump.”  
  
Helena looked at Marisa, then down at the card in her hands.  “What, we’re just supposed to shoot it?”  
  
“Yep!” Marisa replied.  
  
“Alright!” Kseniya said.  “Orreries Sun!”  
  
Four twinkling orbs exploded around the little girl, then to Helena’s surprise a shadowy cloud swirled out around Kseniya.  The cloud expanded into a firmament then a swarm of stars and what looked like birds appeared spinning within the shadows before flying out towards the stump randomly.  It was hardly the amazing barrage Marisa had performed.  But it was still impressive for a ten year old.  
  
Helena turned back to her own card, then mentally shrugged and pointed at the stump.  “Orreries Sun.”  The card seemed to click in her mind, and the magical circle she’d carefully created flashed to life again.  From it her own four orbs arose, but hers were far more solid than the ethereal spheres Kseniya had created.  More interestingly each seemed cased in the proper element of the planet she’d called upon.  They felt powerful, and somehow eager.  
  
With a flick of her finger she directed the spell towards the stump Marisa had indicated.  The orbs began to spin quickly, then fire.  The bolts were actually similar to Marisa’s bullets, but each was wrapped in an element.  Water, wind and fire splashed across the landscape, while electricity crackled with each hit.  
  
Helena allowed her barrage to slow down a bit as Lyudmila took a few steps to the side and held up her own card.  “Orreries Sun.”  Lyudmila’s circle seemed to form around her waist, and as the orbs formed the circles didn’t all disappear, leaving silver lines of light in the air.  The orbs were odd as well, each a colored orb with runes engraved in it.  They began to spin along the lines, elliptical journeys that closely matched the actual planet’s orbits.  As Lyudmila pointed they began to fire as well, silver blasts of energy that from erratic positions.  
  
At this point the stump was starting to look fairly ragged.  Danmaku was designed to be nonlethal, but it wasn’t very discriminating towards inanimate objects.  Lyudmila’s bolts didn’t do much damage, but her flame bursts and Kseniya’s stars seemed to be more solid.  
  
“Okay, that’s enough.”  Marisa said.  Helena stopped her spell, letting the orbs fade back into the aether.  "Now for your final test.  You're going to get to use your powers against a real dangerous youkai!"  
  
A blast of wing rushed across the clearing as Marisa spoke, causing Helena to gasp and shield her eyes.  As the windstorm died down she opened her eyes to see a woman wearing a checkered skirt with twintails punching stuff into what looked like a cell phone from the outside world.  A closer look however showed the woman had pointed ears and an aura that no human possessed.  “Hah!  This time I’m first to the scoop!”  The woman looked down at all of them.  “Hatate Himekaido, of Kakashi Spirit News!  Do you all have time for an interview?”  
  
Helena looked back and forth between the woman and Marisa.  Was the creature dangerous?  Was Marisa making a joke?  And interview?  Why would this land have reporters, much less someone who wanted to interview them?  
  
"She's a crow tengu.  They're insufferable rumor mongers," Marisa said cheerily.  "If you let one chat with you without shooting them in the face once or twice the whole mountain will be bugging you twenty four hours a day.  Best to discourage them."  
  
Hatate looked offended.  "That's slander you know.  Not everyone's a pushy tabloid reporter."  The older girl held her cellphone out like a weapon.  "But if you kids want to give me some action shots before the interview..."  
  
That was what decided it for Helena.  She looked at Lyudmilla and got a nod in return.  The two raised their cards followed shortly by Kseniya.  
  
"Orreries Sun!"

* * *

  
Helena flopped back on the bed.  Today had been... different than what she'd expected.  Then again she really wasn't sure exactly what to expect.  More setting up tents and stupid rules rather than an attack spell and a firefight.  
  
"Too bad we lost," she muttered.  
  
Lyudmilla looked over from where she was stitching up her clothes.  "Well it was our first battle.  And I swear that 'tengu' or whatever was cheating."  
  
"Yeah but even so..." Helena shook her head.  "To get all that power and then be immediately shown up.  It's a bit disappointing."  
  
The trio's attacks had forced Hatate to retreat briefly, but somehow the tengu's camera dispelled their shots.  Even with all three of them working together the tengu managed to dash around and dizzy them with her flash.  After a few minutes they were spending more time doging each other's misfires then trying to hit Hatate.  The ordeal finally ended when Marisa blasted the tengu with a huge laser.  After that massive show of magical power the older witch had unexpectedly invited Hatate in for dinner.  
  
The meal itself had been smoked fish with rice, along with a number of pickled vegetables.  It was a little light on meat compared to the dishes back home, but the sticky rice had been more filling then she was used to.  Helena and her fellow campers had been a little suspicious of the tengu girl, but Marisa and Hatate had chatted like nothing had happened.  
  
Lyudmila's shrug broke Helena out of her reminiscing.  "We learned a new spell at least.  And an attack spell at that."  Lyudmilla patted her spell card.  "Mom and Dad won't even let me near the advanced attack grimoires!  I have no idea why they let us come here if Marisa was going to teach this kind of magic."  
  
"Well, it isn't a deadly spell.  We would have to alter it a lot to make it the equal of a crossbow barrage, much less a true killing magic," Helena said as she sat up.  She picked up the card giving it an appreciative examination.  "Still, it's combat power.  A very useful power."  
  
"Power?"  Lyudmilla frowned at her.  "Why would you want specifically combat power?  
  
Helena looked over at Lyudmilla.  "You've studied the famous witches of my homeland right?"  Lyudmilla nodded at her question.  "Well, Kirke's the only one alive.  The rest ran into someone they couldn't turn into a pig, or charm or curse, and got stabbed."  Helena leaned back and reached towards the ceiling.  "Having the ability to blast people with lightning seems totally cool compared to that."  
  
Lyudmilla shook her head then shrugged.  "I guess.  I just liked designing it.  It was fun getting the magic to all line up."  
  
"I liked making the stars and birds," Kseniya said as she conjured up another small bird out of quintessence and set it circling in the room.  Helena smirked as Lyudmilla sighed.  
  
"Just don't summon them up when we're sleeping," Lyudmilla told her sister before returning her attention to mending.  
  
Kseniya pouted but dismissed the bird.  "Fiiiiine."  The little girl hopped off the bed then headed to the main room, probably to practice her conjuring more.  
  
Helena stretched, then picked up her training grimoire and fished a pen out of her pack.  It was time to write this spellcard down properly.


	2. Chapter 2

Helena looked over the shrine with a certain amount of pity. She'd seen a shrine heading towards the end of its life before and this one fit the bill. There weren't enough priests to keep it up, so it was run down. Since it was run down it couldn't get any money. And since it didn't have any money they couldn't hire a priest. Without an infusion of people from another temple, the cycle continued until the last caretaker gave up or died. The only thing this shrine had going for it was that the grounds were much larger than the building itself. That probably allowed it to run with less people.

"What god owns the temple?" she asked Marisa.

"Eh? It's the Hakurei shrine," Marisa replied. "It's for the barrier and the lands of the border."

Helena frowned. "Yeah but who's the god?" She shook the coins that Marisa had handed each of them before they'd started the trip. "I want to know who I'm giving my money to. Also I shouldn't give money to an enemy of Hecate." Not that it was likely they worshiped the titans in Japan but....

"I'm curious too," Kseniya said.

Marisa looked back at the three like they were asking something incomprehensible. "It's for the barrier and the lands of the boundary." The magician waved her hands to the west. "That's the god."

"That's a place," Lyudmila pointed out.

"Yeah," Marisa said simply. The three girls looked at Marisa as the Gensoukyo native hovered, waiting for them to get her point.

Finally the strange thought worked it way into Helena's consciousness. "Are you saying you worship the lands as a god? Like, not a true divine being, just the land?"

"Hey don't insult the barrier. It's been good to us here," Marisa huffed. "And yeah, we do worship it. It's a god because we say so."

Helena looked at the other two girls who seemed just as confused as she did. The idea that the worshipers decided who was a god just seemed strange to her. No one was going to tell Zeus he wasn't a god after all. And she knew Lyudmila and Kseniya's lands had an uneasy existence between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the old gods of their country. The idea you could just throw in a few more gods had to be even more strange to them.

"Well it's not like I care about the second commandment anyway," Lyudmila finally said.

Seeing that the matter had been settled Marisa returned to landing at the entry gate to the shrine. "Right! Anyway make sure to wash your hands before giving your donations." Helena followed Marisa to the ground then wandered over to the fountain. At least the well was fresh and clean. The ritual was a little odd, especially since this wasn't a water shrine, but she couldn't really fault people from being clean.

"Huh. I was expecting a bigger crowd, not that I'm complaining."

Helena looked up to see a bored woman in a dress with detached sleeves walking out of the shrine building. The outfit was a rich red, which didn't match the run down state of the rest of the shrine. Perhaps dyes were cheaper here? Most importantly Helena could sense a strange power around the woman.

"Heya Reimu," Marisa said. "Figured we should pay our respects. This is their first day out and about."

The woman nodded a greeting in return. "It's nice to see you're visiting the shrine normally this time, as opposed to starting a riot and sending tanks to break the place." She turned to look over Helena and her friends. "Still, I have no idea why you three are hanging out with Marisa. She's a bad influence even for youkai," Reimu said as she moved to sit on the steps.

"I don't know. Ask my grandma," Helena groused.

Lyudmila finished her own cleaning ritual and looked up at the woman. "Mom and Dad said something about 'expanding your understanding of the wizarding world,' whatever that means."

"Huh, so you all are the ages you look," the woman said. She stood and bowed. "Anyway I'm Reimu Hakurei, the miko of this shrine." Reimu pointed towards a box. "Donation box is there."

Helena raised an eyebrow at the priestess' greed, but it wasn't really her money. Marisa had already gone up and tossed in a few coins, then clapped twice before bowing in prayer. Helena followed suit, trying to ignore the dull rattle of metal on wood. As she clapped her hands in prayer she idly wished that the trip not be as dull as she feared it would be. Lyudmila followed suit. Kseniya on the other hand stared at the coins falling through the slats before clapping far too loudly and mumbling a prayer to meet new friends out loud.

"Where does she think she's going to meet anyone our age?" Lyudmila muttered. Helena just shrugged.

Marisa coughed to get their attention. "Anyway kids, Reimu here helps keep Gensoukyo from blowing up. With my help of course."

"Hmph. Help is it? You just try to steal my work," Reimu replied. "Though you can't do that anymore I suppose."

"What?" Marisa frowned down at the woman. "I'm not out of the game yet, ya know! I can do anything you can do."

Reimu smiled. "Then you can get the tea and snacks from the main room." Marisa grimaced in return but in the end shook her head and wandered into the shrine building. 

Lyudmila shook her head. "Wow, she fell for that so easily." Helena had to agree.

Kseniya skipped over and plopped herself down on the porch before turning to Reimu. "You two act like sisters. Are you related?"

"What!" Reimu spat out. "Sisters? The first time we met she burnt down my shrine just to get a cat! She dumped slime on me and called it water training. I've had more duels with her than I have with most youkai races."

"Sounds like sisters to me," Lyudmila said with a smirk.

Helena shook her head again. That all sounded like way too much trouble. "I'm glad I was an only child."

"Yeah, when you're an only child you can pick the people you want to torment like family," Marisa said as she walked back in with a plate carrying several cups of tea.

"I don't want to hear that from a Kirisame," Reimu muttered as she grabbed a cup. "Your family's got a history." 

Helena accepted one of the tea cups as the elder witch passed them out. The taste was milder than the variants that had worked their way into her homeland, though still slightly bitter. "So did you really burn down the shrine?" she asked.

"It was mostly Rika, but yeah," Marisa replied. "It was the thing to do those days."

Kseniya looked over at Marisa. "But won't that make the god mad? You said that you liked the god here."

"It's traditional," Marisa shrugged. "Besides we're witches. We have to annoy the gods every now and then."

Lyudmilla noded. "I suppose that's true."

"Yep. Witches have to annoy everyone just a little," Kseniya added.

Helena shook her head. "Your gods are a lot different from mine." She didn't even want to think what would happen if she got on the bad side of her pantheon. It was dangerous enough being on their good side.

"Finally. A witch with some faith," Reimu replied. "Maybe I should have you watch over the place next Thursday instead of Marisa."

"Uh..." Helena looked at the older woman to try to figure out how serious she was, but Reimu just looked bored. "I'm still not a priestess or anything. And why are you letting Marisa take care of the place. Didn't she burn it down?"

"And isn't Marisa supposed to be watching us?" Kseniya asked.

Reimu simply sipped her tea. "Well that was a while back. Breaking the shrine isn't as cool anymore. Also I'd stop letting her steal my snacks then." She looked over at Marisa. "Though I am kinda curious what you'll be doing with the kids."

"That's the day I have them going over to bug Patchy and loot the library," Marisa replied happily. "You don't think I'd miss out on getting to hear you gripe about your omiai? Especially since Sanae will be suffering as well."

Helena blinked at that. She could feel her translation spell straining at the words. From their expressions Lyudmila and Kseniya were similarly impaired. Lyudmila looked at Reimu. "Omiai?"

"Well the bloodline isn't going to magically continue on its own," Reimu replied with a frown. "And unlike some of us, I'm not going to live forever." The priestess sighed. "Might as well try to find someone suitable. At least I don't have Sanae's issues."

Marisa frowned as well. "I don't know. She might have it easier. Or she would if she didn't have all those outside world hangups." The black white witch shook her head, then smiled. "Ah well. It should turn out alright in the end. You're the one calling the shots after all."

"I suppose so," Reimu replied. "At least I'm not completely at the mercy of the matchmakers and my parents.'

Helena felt she was intruding into things she really didn't want to understand, and unlike a lot of witches, she knew when to leave her curiosity for later. Instead she focused back on Marisa. "So, is this just a social call or what?"

"Every call's a social call," Marisa replied, her humor returning. "But there's a lot to learn here. This shrine may be in the middle of nowhere, but it's the center of weird activity in Gensoukyo. There's a lot of stuff to find around here."

Reimu sniffed at Marisa's insult. "This is hardly nowhere. But she is right that there's a lot to see." The priestess waved at the grounds behind the shrine. "Feel free to run around the backyard. The front here is mainly for guests and shops during the festivals so there's not too much."

"Okay!" Kseniya chirped before hopping down and running to the back.

Helena looked over at Lyudmila and her friend shrugged. "Might as well look around."

"Fair enough," Helena replied as she stood up. There might be some interesting things to learn here about the Eastern powers at least.

She followed Lyudmila down a side path, past the wing of the shrine and a small storehouse. As they cleared the side, she saw Reimu hadn't been joking. There was a pond and a small stream, in addition to a number of planted trees and what looked to be a small farm plot. She started down the path towards in when Lyudmila stopped her. "What's that?" her friend asked, pointing to a small house shaped box.

"A birdhouse maybe?" she replied as she looked over the thing. It was obviously too small for humans, but it looked like it had doors of some sort, and there was a tiny donation box attached to the front.

"That's the Moriya branch shrine," a regal voice replied. "And something of an insult from the local shrine maiden. Though I suppose I can't expect too much from such a poor location."

Helena summoned up a curse spell to her mind as a woman in red materialized two feet in the air next to the little shrine. Beside her Lyudmila pulled out a silver talisman from her sleeve. She could sense the woman was magical in some way, but she couldn't recognize the source of the woman's power.

The woman took note of their preparations but didn't seem concerned at all. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Kanako Yasaka, goddess of the mountain and progress." With a slight gesture Kanako summoned a drinking dish with some liquid Helena couldn't identify in it. "On behalf of my fellow deities I welcome you to the land of ten thousand gods."

Helena could help but swallow nervously. Gods were usually bad news. Still it was important to follow the formalities. Things usually got worse if you annoyed the gods. "It is an honor to meet you great lady Yasaka. Forgive us travelers for not knowing your name and form. I am Helena Aoede, a witch of little standing. I ask you overlook my faults."

Lyudmila gave her a strange look before slipping her talisman to her off hand. "I, Lyudmila Doroshenko bid you greeting. I speak to you without deception, and free of malice."

"Wha-" Helena's jaw dropped at her friends ridiculous tone. She elbowed Lyudmila in the ribs before whispering, "This is a god, not some demon street merchant. At least pretend to be awed or something."

Frowning Lyudmila turned on her. "Why are you being such a coward? She's a god, but that doesn't mean we can't bargain with her. That's the path to power after all."

"Ahahahaha." Helena blanched as she realized the object of their discussion was still hovering right before them. Kanako smiled before taking a drink from her dish. "I knew talking with you outsider witches would be fun. It's been a long time since I was properly feared for my divinity, and the people trying to bargain with me here treat me like a wealthy fool, as opposed to a reasonable lord." Her smile widened. "Still, both of you should probably work on your skills a bit more."

Helena blushed at the goddess' words. At least Lyudmila had the decency to look equally chagrined. Kanako shrugged and continued. "In any case, I'm not a curse god, so you don't need to worry about me demanding things and smiting you if you fail." Helena relaxed a little. "And there's nothing I want other than faith, so I'm not interested in your little power bargains." Kanako's grin became more conversational. "Though I do support my worshipers. If you're interested in the power of the Moriya, I'm willing to accept your faith. I have no issue with youkai."

"Sorry," Helena replied, "but I do serve Hecate. And my home is distant both in space and culture. Could you really act in Nova Thiva without causing trouble?"

"That's a silly question to ask a god." Helena jumped in surprise as a duplicate of the woman appeared, this one wearing a red peplos decorated with serpents and carrying a drinking dish filled with wine. "We gods can be anywhere we please, and can change our forms to suit our environs."

Lyudmila looked between the two forms of the goddess. "Whoa."

Kanako smiled at the praise, then sighed as her Greek form vanished. "However to live somewhere and accept their faith can put a strain on a god's sense of self. Those Olympians are fractious barbarians, unlike their poor suffering worshipers." Helena frowned but didn't contest the point. "I'd only really act as a personal god there. Joining the pantheon would require me to accept too much nonsense into my being, and if they wormed me into the stories it might be enough to break me into two gods. A god can handle a great deal of strain, but going through all that to get married off to some minor deity would be more than I could stand." Kanako shrugged. "Still I can offer you my aid if you're willing to share some of the faith you send to Hecate."

Helena shook her head. "I still have to refuse. I don't really have much faith to throw around." And since Hecate was one of the few gods in her pantheon who wasn't terrible, she wanted to stay on her own goddess' good side.

"What kind of aid do you give anyway?" Lyudmila asked. "You said you were the god of progress?"

"That's right!" Kanako replied happily. "My goal is to bring the science of the outside world to Gensoukyo, without damaging the innate magic of the world. My followers among the tengu and kappa have already made great strides in industry, though there are still a few problems getting a proper power source going."

"Whoa!" Lyudmila seemed impressed at the idea. "That's really impressive! I've been looking at mixing archaic and modern styles for a while, but it's been really hard to not break the spell entirely. What kind of rituals do you use for that?"

Kanako chuckled. "Well it's not so much the ritual as the mindset. You see-"

"WHEEEE~!"

 

"Ah! She's gaining on us! Fly faster!"

Helena turned to see three girls with transparent wings zip through the air, followed by Kseniya who was riding a... giant turtle?

"Gamera rises to cleanse the land! All is lost!" the silver haired fairy in the rear cried.

"This is your fault Sunny!" yelled the dark haired fairy.

The blond leading them spun around. "I was using my powers! That girl must be a witch or someth-urk!" A blast from Kseniya silenced the fairy's complaints and sent the trio scattering again.

"Alright! Let's finish the spies off!" yelled Kseniya as she rocked back and forth, trying to steer the giant turtle.

"Please don't fall off young miss," the turtle replied as it lazily banked to pursue the fairy trio.

Helena and Lyudmila stared at the odd tableau open mouthed as Kanako began laughing. Finally Lyudmila managed to collect herself enough to state, "The pixies here are very large."

"Yes," Helena had to agree.

Kanako chuckled a little more before shaking her head. "The fairies here in Japan are a little different. Those three are a little bigger than the usual lot though." The goddess sipped from her drinking dish again. "Even so, I imagine even a young witch can keep those three under wraps for a while."

Lyudmila nodded and turned back to Kanako. "So, you were saying something about mindset?"

Kanako set her dish on her shrine. "It's about faithfulness. Trust and respect rather than equal exchange. You see-"

Helena shook her head and left the two to discuss the matters of faith with a wave. Eastern religion was mildly interesting, but she could pry the secrets out of Lyudmila later. The magic itself was worthless to her.

Instead she moved to the shrine's back grounds. The pond where the turtle obviously lived was a large feature, and the place was decently well kept. It looked like a pleasant place to relax, and she imagined the few travelers who came out this far probably availed themselves of it. Still it didn't really feel mystical.

It was when she started walking towards the forest edge near the back that she felt a twinge of something odd. Something magical. Not the subdued magic of the shrine or the regal magic of the goddess Kanako, but something old. Something familiar.

Helena hesitated. Old magic was dangerous magic. But it wasn't too far from the shrine, and it didn't feel alive. Surely Reimu wouldn't leave something that dangerous too close. Right?

She took a deep breath, then pulled out a needle and pricked her finger. As a drop of blood formed she whispered a spell against evil magic and then walked carefully into the woods.

It was amazing how quickly the shrine seemed to fade behind the trees. The place wasn't even heavily forested. It was just a trick of the hill and the trees that were there that seemed to isolate this area. Helena hesitated again, then shook off the feeling and forced herself to press on. She was a witch. SHE was the evil in this forest.

"I smell blood."

The voice nearly froze Helena's heart. As she grabbed at her spellcard a green blue mist slowly formed before her. The mist roiled and churned, rising from a cracked stone buried half in the ground, and then formed a face. "Blood and magic. And bloody magic. Such a familiar smell."

"A ghost," Helena sighed in relief. Ghosts could be very dangerous, but any Greek witch worth her salt could deal with them. Wincing with pain she squeezed out another drop of blood from her finger prick, before pulling out some preserved meat she'd grabbed from the pantry. "Spirit free from Hades realm, I offer you blood and flesh if you desire to stay and speak."

The mist wavered, then snapped together into a woman wearing blue robes, like a glass breaking in reverse. Black wings of shadow rose behind the dead witch, and the specter seemed to have no feet. The air seemed to freeze as beneath the woman's gaze.

The green haired ghost plucked a staff from the ether and cradled it before smiling. "I appreciate the offer little girl, but the great spirit Mima needs no such offerings." Helena felt her fear returning as the ghost smiled. "I merely found the scent of your magic interesting. It's been a while since I met such a bloody mage. And while she was younger then you, your magic is more refined. You use one of the ancient styles don't you little one?"

"I use the magic of Greece," Helena replied cautiously.

"Oh excellent," the undead witch smiled. "Perhaps the first witches to abandon the gods, yet still bound to them. And filled with necromancy and deceit. A fine tradition." The ghost witch planted her staff next to her. "I'm Mima. A pleasure to meet you."

"Helena." She nodded carefully in return. A second later a thought struck her. "Wait, Mima? You're the master Marisa was going on about?"

Mima laughed. "Oh Marisa's talking about me now is she? She's grown up so much." Mima lowered her voice as if she was hiding a secret. "You know, when she was your age she stopped talking about me. Avoided any mention of her dear departed master. She was trying to get out of my shadow you see." Mima's smile softened. "I guess now that she's a proper witch she's gotten a bit nostalgic."

There was a boom from where the shrine was, then Marisa abruptly crashed through the nearest trees. The black clad witch was holding on to her hat desperately as she skidded to a stop next to Helena. The black white witch caught her breath before looking up at Mima. "You're awake?!"

"No, I'm just sleepwalking," Mima replied with a wink. The ghost witch placed her hand on Helena's shoulder. "This one is interesting. Your apprentice? I didn't think you'd take on one so soon."

Marisa rubbed the back of her head. "Well, uh, it's more of a summer camp. I mean, I'm teaching them to blow stuff up but..."

"Heh. Still haven't changed that much." The ghost yawned. "Well, have fun with your camp then. Perhaps I'll wake up if you bring your other visitors around." Mima looked down at Helena. "And if you want some tips on proper necromancy girl, you know how to call me."

The undead witch closed her eyes, faded to mist, then was gone.

Helena and Marisa stood there staring at the space the ghostly witch had once been in before turning back towards the shrine and beginning to head back. For the first time Helena actually felt she understood the strange woman who was serving as her camp counselor.

As they cleared the forest and entered the shrine's back grounds, she managed to ask, "So, um, why is she here behind the shrine?"

"Because that's her grave." Marisa took a deep breath before looking over at her. "You see, powerful ghosts can't exist without a reason. Either an emotion that forces them to hold on to the world, or magic from another source. Sure the little ghostly blobs can run around all they want, but a real evil spirit? That takes emotion."

Marisa turned away and pulled the brim of her hat low. "So when an evil spirit stops holding a grudge, well..." Marisa shrugged.

The two walked a little further before Marisa sighed and shook her head. "Anyway! You girls managed to surprise even me. I was expecting Kanako and those fairies to drop by, but getting Genji to run around like that was something else. Reimu's ordered me to drag you all back before you summon Shinki or Rika or something." The witch gave her a thumbs up. "Good job."

"I hope all our outings aren't graded by how much we annoy the people we visit," Helena muttered. She had a feeling she was going to be disappointed however.


	3. Chapter 3

Helena looked askance as Kseniya put down the plate of milk on the porch step. The young girl then waved her hand and shouted "Grandfather Domovoi, please come into my house and tend the flocks!"

Helena looked over at where Lyudmila was sitting, "So... what was that and why does it require our tiny supply of milk?"

"I'm summoning a domovoi," Kseniya said as she walked back into the cottage. "This is a nice place so it should get a good domovoi."

Lyudmila sighed and shook her head before turning to Helena. "It's a summoning ritual for a house spirit." She grimaced and turned to Kseniya, "But I don't know why you're doing that here. There's no domovoi on this island, much less in this realm."

Kseniya sniffed. "You don't know that for sure." The girl sat down and grabbed the bowl of rice that seemed to come with every meal here. "If there is one we want it in our house."

"Just so long as it stays in the living room," Helena replied before returning to her own meal. She was slowly becoming used to it, but she still missed her aunt's cooking. Japan had an obsession with fish it seemed, and milk was barely on the menu. She'd be mad at Kseniya wasting the milk they had, but honestly the paltry amount was more of an insult than a supply.

"Looks like you kids are having fun." Marisa dropped out of the sky in front of the door and waltzed into the cottage like she usually did. "Ready for today's activities?"

Lyudmila shrugged. "What are today's activities?"

"Ingredient hunting," Marisa replied. "I managed to get a lot of the stuff that can be preserved before you kids got here, but some items need to be fresh. And then there's the ingredients that only work for the people that harvest them." Marisa stretched. "But it won't be all boring work. We'll picnic by the lake and stuff. It'll be fun."

Helena sighed. Those words never actually proceeded a fun time. "Fun. Sure."

"Okay, it won't be entirely boring," Marisa replied with a shrug. "Anyway I've got a list of things to look for. Just finish eating and get some bags, and we'll be on our way."

* * *

Two hours later Helena was reflecting on how right her initial suspicions were. It wasn't fun. At all.

The Forest of Magic was apparently well known for its mushrooms. Fungi of all kinds and rarities filled the forest, waiting to be picked. And the reason that fungi loved the forest was because it was oppressively humid. The thick trees provided shade, but the heat was enough to make the entire excursion a sticky sweaty mess. Helena was dressed for hot weather, and she was still uncomfortable. Kseniya and Lyudmila were just miserable.

Marisa had admittedly tried to make things interesting by pointing out all the plants and herbs she could along with what uses they had. But eventually the weather got to their "camp counselor" as well. Apparently the woman's snarky good cheer had limits.

Thus when the group finally escaped the forest into the sun Helena was relieved. The fact that they'd exited right next to a huge lake made it even better. It was hot, but at least it wasn't as muggy. Helena all but ran into a nearby stream to cool her feet. "Finally. I thought my homeland was supposed to be hot, but that was some of the worst weather ever."

"Yeah, sometimes it can get pretty bad," Marisa admitted. "I've got spells on the houses to keep them a little more tolerable." The older witch shrugged and started taking her shoes off. "Still, as you can see some of the rarest mushrooms in the magical world grow because of that. And the lake here is close enough that you can cool down a bit when you're tired of the weather." Marisa smiled. "Like now, say."

Kseniya and Lyudmila began taking off their footwear as well, but both looked at the lake with some concern. "There aren't any rusalka or kelpies, right?" Kseniya asked cautiously.

Lyudmila frowned and nodded. "It looks like a very deep lake. Don't you have water monsters here?"

Marisa's smile faded a bit. "This end's one of the safe ones actually. The lake's got mermaids, and a few other creatures here and there, but the more rare and dangerous youkai hide in the higher pools." Marisa turned to Lyudmila. "But you're right about the depth. It's shallow for about twenty meters, but it gets real deep after that. I figure you girls are smart enough to stay close to the surface though."

Helena looked at the lake, then shrugged. It was like at home, avoid the naiads and nereids and you should be fine. Besides it wasn't like the forest was much safer. Still, there was one problem she realized as the other three stepped into the stream. "Um, we didn't take our swimming clothes with us." Helena lifted up her basket of materials. "You told us about the mushrooms, not the swimming and stuff."

"Yep!" Marisa's smile brightened again. "Which leads us to today's spell kids! Retrieving objects at a distance." She took off her hat and then reached into it to pull out a swimsuit and a potion flask. "And there we go!"

Kseniya blinked. "Weren't they just in your hat?"

"No, but they could have been," Marisa replaced her hat. "That makes the magic easier."

Lyudmila shook her head. "Do we need a hat for this masterful magic trick?"

"Nah," Marisa shrugged. "Alice uses her skirt, and honestly you could just pull small objects out of your sleeves. Heck just pulling it from behind your back works too. Main thing is people can't see your hands when you cast the spell."

Helena sat down on a rock and put down her basket. "So how does the spell actually work?"

"That's actually the easy part." Marisa held up a finger. "So you girls all know curses right?" Helena blinked then sniffed derisively at the question. Of course they knew curses.

"A few," Lyudmila replied dryly.

Kseniya frowned. "But we aren't supposed to use them unless we really really need to."

Marisa nodded. "Yeah curses are kinda a last resort thing. Or a joke. But anyway the important thing is knowing the basic principle. When you want to cast a curse you get some object off the target right? Why?"

Helena and the others looked at each other then back to Marisa. "To create a connection between the spell and the target of course," Helena replied slowly. "Personal items have a connection to their owner."

"Right!" Marisa smiled. "Which means all your stuff has a connection to you!" Marisa reached into her hat again and pulled out a wand. "So instead of using the wand to find me, I use me to find the wand! And then I bring it to me. It's like targeting a curse, but in reverse." Helena rubbed her eyes. She was beginning to dread when Marisa explained things, but as she mentally filled in the blanks, she thought she understood.

"But how do we figure out the right thing that's connected to us?" Lyudmila asked. "After all there's only one me, but I own a lot of stuff."

Marisa shrugged. "That is the tricky part. I mostly did it by feel. It'll take a bit of work the first couple of times, but it'll get easier as you practice. You can also make it really easy if you mark your stuff, but that gives it a closer connection to you, so be careful."

Helena sighed. It seemed they were out of clues. Still it shouldn't be too hard a spell right? She closed her eyes and tried to feel the connections leading to her.

Of course it turned out merely visualizing the mess was hard at first. How could you trace something backwards? It wasn't how the magic was supposed to work.

Finally she decided to try starting with the normal spell. She targeted her hat and visualized the thread of 'ownership' that attached it to her 'self'. This came easily to her. Altering the threads of fate was something a Greek witch was good at after all. Then she reached out, trying to find the other threads that were attached here. It took two tries, but then her mind clicked and she found herself holding dozens upon dozens of threads.

"I did it!"

Helena's concentration shattered at Kseniya's happy shout. The other girl happily waved the clothes as proof of her victory. Lyudmila turned a withering glare on her sister. "Should you really be waving your bathing clothes around like a flag?"

Sighing as Kseniya pouted, Helena did her best to ignore the squabbling sisters and turned back to her spell. This time she managed to grab hold of the threads on the first try, then she worked on sorting them. She gave up on trying to figure out what item was attached to what string immediately, and instead tried to figure out where the biggest mass of strings were. When she put that together she discarded those, since they'd almost certainly lead back to her home, and began determining the second biggest bundle.

Now that she had those in hand she followed back the strings. It was an odd feeling, moving up the string instead of back towards herself, but the connection was hard to lose now that she'd found it. In a few moments she had reached what was likely the cabin and was peering at the thread ends wondering how to tell them apart.

In the end she just gave up and began rummaging around in the other side. It was easy to tell the items apart once she'd picked one up. She grabbed a few spare dresses and her comb before finally pulling out her swim clothes. "There!"

"Finally," Lyudmila muttered as she pulled out her own clothes from her sleeve. "So where are we going to change?"

Marisa waved the wand she'd grabbed and a tent popped up out of the ground. "For all your modesty needs. Don't think there are any fishermen near here but no reason to take the chance."

"So this is where all the fish come from?" Helena asked as they stepped inside and began changing.

"That's not possible," Lyudmila replied. "There were saltwater fish."

"Yeah, we get imports from other realms as well," Marisa said. "Still the lake gives us most of our fish, both for food and trading. It's one of the safest places to fish, even with the mist."

Kseniya looked at Marisa curiously. "Is the lake really misty in the morning? It doesn't look like it should be."

Marisa smirked, "You'll see." The older witch finished putting on her swimwear before putting her hat back on. "Anyway I'm sweaty and miserable, so let's swim."

Helena completely agreed with that sentiment. As soon as Marisa dispelled the tent she was dashing to the lake shore. The water was just as cool and clear as the stream that led into it. She waded in a few feet to where the water was about three feet then dived in, taking a few lazy strokes before surfacing and turning back to the shore.

Kseniya had apparently rushed out as well, but was wading carefully now that the water was deeper. Lyudmila was going more slowly. Marisa was sticking more to the shore sitting in the surf. Helena waved her two friends over. "Come on, come on."

"Right!" Kseniya finally stopped trying to wade and messily paddled over. Lyudmila stuck to wading.

Helena spent a few moments lazily allowing herself to drift before they arrive. "How did you get so good at swimming?" Lyudmila asked with a grimace.

"Swimming is important," Helena replied. "Even if Nova Thiva is landlocked there's a big lake nearby. And there's a lot of islands around. Just because we're city witches doesn't mean we can stick around in one place all the time."

"Wow. Your realm has a lot of water," Kseniya said with wide eyes. "We just have rivers and small lakes."

Lyudmila nodded and gestured over the waters here. "This is probably as big as the biggest lake in the Black Forest. Maybe bigger. And all of them are packed with water monsters. I don't think there's a single lake in the whole Black Forest that isn't at least haunted."

Helena shook her head. "Weird." She'd only seen the sea once, but it was huge. The idea of every waterway having a monster was just strange to her. "I mean sure there are a lot of sea monsters, but there's just so much water to lose them in."

"A massive sea... That sounds nice. But it'd be hard to find my friends."

A blue haired woman wearing a green kimono top surfaced next to the three. Helena and Lyudmila blinked at the newcomer while Kseniya gasped and pointed at the scaled tail where the woman's legs should be. "Ah! Mermaid!"

"Oh, heya Wakasagihime," Marisa said as she glided through the water towards the group. She must be flying underwater Helena realized. "What are you doing here in the shallows?"

"Hi, Marisa." The mermaid waved. "There were some nice garnets here, so I was going to grab a few."

"Garnets?" Lyudmila perked up at that. "Really?"

The mermaid smiled and nodded. "Yeah." Wakasagihime held out her hand to reveal several pebble sized gems, causing Lyudmila to deflate. "Mostly black garnets, but I'm hoping to find a red one."

"Cool. I'll have to check it out myself," Marisa said. "So how's the water?"

"Clear and safe, but it'll be noon in about an hour," Wakasagihime replied.

Kseniya looked at the two curiously. "What happens at noon?"

"Lunch," Marisa lied cheerfully. "Wanna join us Wakasagihime?"

"Ah, no thank you, I've got plans already made. And I wouldn't want to interrupt you and your children," the mermaid replied.

Helena's jaw dropped. "I'm not her kid!" she and Lyudmila yelled out.

"They're not my kids," Marisa yelled waving her hands frantically in denial.

"Oh?" The mermaid cocked her head curiously. "Well I suppose their hair is the wrong color. Unless you were seeing the other shrine maiden."

Marisa frowned. "I'm not."

Wakasagihime shrugged. "Oh well. Anyway I need to get to my gem hunt. Have fun." The mermaid waved then swam over to the shore before beaching herself and starting to sift through the sand.

Marisa sighed and floated to face them. "So congrats. You got to meet your first mermaid. They're usually very reclusive so this is a rare occurrence."

"Mermaids are kinda ditzy," Kseniya noted.

"Yep," Marisa replied. "She was under some strange magical power when we first met, so she asked if I was here to exterminate her. Got really happy when I said yes." Marisa thought for a moment. "Less happy when I set her on fire, but the lake was right here so..."

Helena started at Marisa. "You set her on fire?"

"It was a weird incident," Marisa said. Helena looked at the elder witch but that seemed to be all the explanation that was forthcoming.

Lyudmila looked over at her. "I'm actually surprised you didn't think she was a siren."

Helena blinked at her friend. "Sirens have feathers." She held up her hands as everyone turned towards her. "No really they do! Grandma had us go visit a group once. They're creatures of the air."

"Okay then," Lyudmila said shaking her head. "So why'd you visit them anyway?"

"To learn how to suppress their charming song. It's kinda unintentional apparently." Helena blushed as she remembered her younger self blundering face first into a rock when she first arrived at the island. "It's not a hard spell but Grandma wanted me to learn it early because it can be tweaked easily to handle other sonic charms."

Marisa smirked. "That sounds like a great spell. I should have you go bother that night sparrow with it."

"Why am I your weapon of annoyance?" Helena groused.

"Because that annoys you too," Marisa replied. "But that's for later. For now you three have fun in the lake. I'm gonna go get a place picked out for lunch."

As Marisa started back towards the shore, Lyudmila and Kseniya turned to her. "Well since we're here for a bit, why don't you teach us how to swim properly?" Lyudmila said.

Kseniya bobbed up and down in agreement. "Yeah! Then we can race and stuff."

Helena blinked. There was no way she'd be able to teach some other people how to swim well in a day. And certainly not well enough to beat her in a race.

Then again, it would kinda be nice to beat the sisters at a contest...

Helena began swimming a little closer to shore. "Alright, so the most important thing is learning how to kick right."

* * *

It took a bit of work, but eventually Lyudmila and Kseniya managed to get a decent stroke down. Helena waved over to where Marisa was sitting in the surf. "We're going to race down to peninsula," she said, pointing at the strip of land to their left. It didn't seem too far, and it was in the shallows that Marisa indicated.

"Sure thing!" Marisa replied. "There should be some raspberry bushes there if you want to grab some for lunch too."

"Berries? Let's go~" Kseniya said before starting off.

Lyudmila squawked in protest. "It's not a race if we don't all start at the same time!" Helena just mentally shrugged and started swimming.

Kseniya's head start quickly vanished of course. Lyudmila's height allowed the older girl to pass her sister easily. Helena on the other hand kept up a steady stoke, pacing Kseniya. Then as the other two girls began to tire and slow down, Helena allowed herself to keep moving forward. By the end of the race she had enough time to leave the water and walk clear of the surf before the two sisters dragged themselves ashore. "By the way, swimming is tiring," Helena said.

"You don't say," Lyudmila muttered. Kseniya settled for a pout.

Helena smirked before the reality of being soaked through in the cold caught up to her. "Ugh. I should fly back and grab my grimoire for a drying spell."

"Your prize, Olympian," Lyudmila said before flicking a cantrip over the three of them. Helena sighed in relief as the chilly water vanished.

Kseniya gave her an odd look. "You haven't memorized one? What do you use to dry your clothes?"

"The sun," Helena replied shortly. "My realm is warmer than here most of the time. Drying charms just don't come up that often." Helena paused and frowned. "Though it was really hot a while back. Why is it colder now?"

"That is weird," Lyudmila said. "Maybe we should look around?"

Helena let the taller girl lead the way as the three of them moved through the tiny strip of forest between the two shores. They had to be careful to avoid the thorns of the raspberry bushes and other foliage that grew there, but it was still only a few minutes before Kseniya pointed at a white splotch. "That's ice!"

She squinted and moved past a tree to get a better view, only to see Kseniya was right. The entire shore area was frozen over, along with a small chunk of the lake. Lyudmila whistled at the sight. "That's incredible. How did that happen?"

Helena pointed at the small igloo sitting in the middle of the frozen area. "At a guess who ever lives there is responsible."

The buzzing of large wings caught their attention as they stood there. Looking up Helena saw a small fairy in a simple blue dress with wings like crystals flying down towards them. "Hey! What are you doing near my house?" The fairy put her hands on her hips and peered at them intently.

"We swam here, miss fairy," Kseniya said. "We were going to pick raspberries."

"Oh! That's okay then." The fairy settled down to the ground. "The raspberries here are nice, but freezing all the thorns so I can pick them is hard."

Helena blinked. "Freezing all the thorns?"

"Like this!" the fairy said before turning towards a bush and concentrating. The ridiculous expression on the fairy's face almost made Helena laugh, but her mirth was replaced by awe as frost slowly crept up the vine, freezing each thorn while leaving the berries unharmed. The leaves were often less lucky, but it was still impressive control.

"Wow," Lyudmila said. Her friend pointed over to the frozen area. "Did you freeze that place too?"

The fairy looked scandalized by the question. "Of course I did! I'm Cirno, the strongest fairy!" The little figure puffed out her chest as she continued. "I can freeze anything. I'm so strong, I was even in the Gensoukyo Chronicle! Everyone should know about me."

Helena raised an eyebrow at that. The little fairy kid didn't seem that different from the trio Kseniya roundly trounced, much less to be the equal of the fey royalty that once inhabited Europe. But keeping such a large area of the lake frozen was not easy. Her mother would find it quite taxing, and even her grandmother would consider it a waste of power. "Sorry, but we're not from Gensoukyo, so we didn't know about you. It's really impressive though."

Cirno seemed confused for a moment, then her eyes widened. "Oh, you're those witch girls from the paper. Aya was really mad Hatate found out about you first. Um... Kseniya, Ludmila, and Helena." The fairy said, pointing at each in turn.

"Huh, we're famous," Helena muttered. She hadn't realized visitors were such a big deal in this realm. Or maybe it was because of their 'chaperone.'

Lyudmila stepped forward, an odd gleam in her eyes. "So Cirno, how would you like to get even stronger?"

"Stronger?" The fairy looked up at Lyudmila quizzically. "But I'm already the strongest? What are you talking about?"

"I can trade some of my power for yours," Lyudmila said. "All I want is a little bit of your fairy essence, and in exchange I can give you true magic."

Helena blinked as her friend pulled a shining jewel out of nowhere. She looked to Kseniya for an explination but the younger sister was just watching intently. Perhaps this was their tradition's unique skill?

Cirno on the other hand seemed to find the shining jewel mesmerizing. "I don't know... I mean, I'm the best fairy. Why would I want to give away some of my fairyness? Freezing power is all the power I need."

"Um," Lyudmila seemed to think for a moment. "Well it would give you the ability to, uh, change size. Or maybe teleport? It's magic!"

The fairy's gaze sharpened. "Teleporting? I kinda wanna teleport..." Cirno slowly reached down towards the gem of power.

"Don't touch Cirnoooooooo!"

Helena yelped in surprise as a green haired fairy streaked out of the sky and kicked Lyudmila in the head. The tiny girl pointed down at the stunned witch with a trembling hand. "Get away from Cirno you, you, crazy witch!"

Cirno blinked as the green fairy grabbed her by the hand and began flying away. "Huh, what's wrong Daiyousei? Why are we running away?" The voices faded as the two fairies headed into the distance.

Helena stood in bemused silence for a while before looking down at Lyudmila. "What was that all about?"

"Yeah, why were you trying to make a contract with a little fairy like that?" Kseniya asked. "Making contracts with anything less then a lake spirit is weird."

Lyudmila groaned and slowly pulled herself upright. "You saw her ice powers! I just wanted a bit of that ability. And unlike the fey back home she wouldn't have made some crazy bargain that had me solving puzzles for the rest of my life or some nonsense." She rubbed her head. "I don't know what was up with that other fairy though. Fey are never supposed to interfere with bargains like that..."

Helena just shook her head. "I think the rules might just be different here. Anyway, we aren't going to making any fey contracts today, so let's get some berries and head back."

* * *

They'd flown back just as a strange mist had started to roll in. Apparently the noon mist was what gave the lake its name, though Helena was still confused as to how that worked. Lunch itself had been a set of fairly modern sandwiches to Helena's delight. Something other than fish was great.

After lunch they'd changed back and picked a few plants that should be harvested in the afternoon, before finally heading back to the cabin.

As they approached the house Marisa suddenly paused and held up a hand. "Hrm." The older witch's eyes narrowed for a moment before relaxing. "That's odd."

"What is it?" Helena asked dreading the inevitable answer.

"Why don't you kids go see for yourself?" Marisa replied with her carefree grin.

Helena sighed. "Why do I bother asking you questions anymore?"

"No clue kid," Marisa shrugged. "I'm more of an 'ask questions' type myself really."

"Let's just see what's happening," Lyudmila said before walking over and pushing open the door.

Inside the sitting room was a small girl with doll like complexion in very formal robes. As Kseniya ran over next to her sister to get a good look, the girl bowed to them. "Please take care of me." Then with that pronouncement the girl vanished.

"Is the house haunted?" Kseniya asked cautiously.

Helena shook her head. "I feel a presence, but its not one of the dead."

"Zashiki warashi," Marisa said moving up behind them. "Our local house spirits and of course youkai spies, though since we're all youkai here I figure there won't be much spying. Not sure why she decided to move in, but it's good luck. Treat her nice."

Lyudmila's mouth dropped. "Wait, do you mean Kseniya's ritual actually summoned a house spirit?"

"Yay! A new friend," Kseniya cheered.

Helena just began walking towards her room "At least it's not some creepy old man." It seemed their trip was going to get stranger and stranger as time passed, and there was nothing she could do about it.


	4. Chapter 4

Helena looked over at the zashiki warashi as the spirit ate the small offering of rice and fish they'd placed out. The little spirit ate sparingly, and appeared infrequently. The longest she'd seen the girl was when Kseniya taught the spirit cat's cradle.

Still the spirit's presence was obvious. She showed up to every meal, and often switched things around in the kitchen and living room. Helena also suspected some of the creaking and whatnot in the house at night was the fault of the spirit, but given all the other noises from the forest it wasn't really annoying.

Which meant Helena was more curious then irritated. She wasn't used to having spirits running around her house after all.

Making sure to keep her movements relaxed she sipped her tea, then casually looked over to the zashiki warashi. "Do you get bored around here when we're all out?"

The spirit girl froze in surprise and actually became slightly transparent, but relaxed just a little when Helena went back to eating. The girl opened her mouth a few times and then whispered, "I'm fine," before returning to her own meal. Helena decided not to press the issue for now. The little spirit was jumpy when directly addressed by anyone but Kseniya.

Helena got a few brief relaxing moments to finish eating before a black white whirlwind kicked in the door wearing her usual grin. The zashiki warashi disappeared immediately, while Lyudmila groaned and Kseniya frowned. Marisa of course ignored them all. "Morning kids. You all ready to break into the library today?"

Lyudmila frowned. "We aren't really stealing from the library right?"

Marisa sighed. "Well you should be, but since I need Patchy and Remilia to help you out for the rest of the trip we're doing things the boring way." The witch smiled again. "But if you want to try to pocket any books go for it! I'll just steal them back before you leave."

"You shouldn't steal other people's books," Kseniya said with a frown. "They'll curse you."

"Oh yeah, I should teach you anti curse wards," Marisa muttered to herself. "Well that's for later. For now let's just fly over." Sighing Helena stood and headed out.

The trip to the mansion was actually fairly quick. A few miles brought them to the lake, and then past it to a large mansion in the French style. The building stood out with its high walls and ornate gardens, especially since the wild forest just outside the building was a stark contrast to the order within.

To Helena's surprise Marisa actually landed next to the mansion's entrance as opposed to just barging in. As she landed a woman in an eastern dress with bright red hair stepped out from a small gatehouse and opened the iron gate. "Hello Marisa," the red haired woman said with a wave. "I take it these are your guests?"

Marisa adjusted her hat. "Yep! I brought them here to commiserate with Patchy and Alice about how terrible I am."

"I see they'll be here for dinner then," the woman replied cheerily. She turned then bowed to Helena and her friends. "In the name of my mistress, welcome to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. I'm Hong Meiling, the gate guard."

Helena bowed in return. "Helena." She looked over Meiling as Lyudmila and Kseniya introduced themselves. The red haired woman wasn't quite human, but she didn't sense magic either. Perhaps Meiling had been blessed like an Amazon? The woman had a certain grace that the female warriors possessed.

She discarded the thoughts as Meiling waved them through. "Marisa knows the way, so feel free to go on in. Do stay close though. The mansion is very large."

"Thanks?" Helena replied looking at the building. The mansion did seem big, but it didn't look big enough that a person would ever be out of earshot of someone, even if it was an enclosed building instead of a proper estate. Still she stuck close to Marisa as they walked through the outer gardens to the front door.

She understood Meiling's warning as soon as they stepped into the foyer. The twist of magic in the air was immediately obvious, and the giant two story staircase on the first floor made the spell's effects obvious. "Size alteration," Helena muttered. That was actually impressive for a building this size.

"Doesn't the spell take a lot of power?" Lyudmila asked. "I mean, it would be easier to make a city in a bottle then fill out a building this size. How many magicians live here?"

"Just one, though this is all the work of a dabbler," Marisa replied. "Sakuya's got an innate talent."

Helena shook her head. "Pretty impressive talent." Helena knew plenty of people who had some innate skill they could draw upon, usually divination skill or minor blessings. This however was a skill equal to godly artifacts.

"As befitting a servant of the devil."

Helena flinched as a presence washed over her. Turning she saw a young woman with bat wings, dressed in scarlet. The girl looked to be her age, or perhaps younger, but Helena could feel a strange power. "Welcome to my mansion. I'm pleased you could stay here. I hope you find what you seek, before we have you for... dinner." The woman smiled, revealing pointed canines. Helena reached quietly for her spellcard.

Her friend's reactions were more dramatic. "Kozlak!" Kseniya cried out as she hid behind her sister.

Lyudmila blanched, then fumbled about before pulling out a cross. "Stay, devil!"

The young woman appraised the crucifix carefully. "Ah. Eastern Orthodox. How interesting." She calmly walked over and plucked the cross from Lyudmila's shaking hands. "I have a fondness for collecting crosses. Especially those used against me. Sakuya?"

A maid appeared next to the devil girl, holding a engraved gold cross with jewels at the tips. "From Budapest," the blue clad maid said as she placed the symbol on Lyudmila's palm.

"Thanks?" Lyudmila managed to stutter.

"You done trying to scare the kids, Remilia?" Marisa asked with narrowed eyes.

Remilia shrugged. "Yes, I think I am. You should have trained them better though. If I'd tried that on you, you would have given a snappy answer and shot me." The vampire thought for a moment. "Still I suppose they weren't complete cowards." She looked over at Kseniya and her nose wrinkled. "Garlic doesn't actually hurt me, just so you know. I merely hate the smell."

"Oh," Kseniya said, pouting. The girl put something back into her pouch and stepped out from behind her sister.

As the tension left the room Helena leaned closer to Marisa. "I don't suppose you could shoot that bat anyway," she whispered to the elder witch.

"Nah it'd be impolite. We'll shoot her later," Marisa whispered back.

"Oh a conspiracy? Well have fun with that." Remilia turned around and headed off towards the stairs. "If you need anything, please don't hesitate to ask Sakuya. I fear it is late for me, and I must rest."

When Remilia had passed out of sight Sakuya curtsied. "I hope that cross wasn't a family keepsake. I fear the mistress can sometimes be quite forceful in her bargaining."

"No, it's just something we keep in case it's needed," Lyudmila said. She grimaced. "Though apparently it doesn't work as well as I thought."

"To use a cross against a vampire frequently requires faith," Sakuya said. "And even then Lady Remilia is the highest class of vampire. I would suggest something more universally effective. Fried beans perhaps. Or spicy peppers."

"Oh!" Kseniya started. "I have a spell for that!"

Helena blinked. "You can't mean..."

"Yeah! I made the spell work for any fruit or vegetable!" Kseniya said with a smile.

"Might be a good idea to leave it be for now," Marisa replied. "Remi's just marking her territory. She's like that. Devils you know."

Helena's reply was cut off by a group of maids with gossamer wings bursting out of a room. "Ah!" The one in the lead shouted. "It's the head maid! Look busy!" The fairies skidded to a halt, and began walking in a stately manner down the hall. As Sakuya sighed a small green skinned creature walked out after the fairies. The little creature shrugged, then began ambling in the fairies wake, taking time to fix their mess.

"Was that a hobgoblin?" Lyudmila asked incredulously.

"Yes. Some were imported briefly and Lady Remilia took them in." Sakuya smiled. "They almost make up for the amount of extra work the fairies create."

"Are all fairies usually that incompetent?" Helena asked. "The stories presented them a little differently."

"The Gensoukyo fairies are a little strange," Sakuya replied.

Marisa shrugged. "That's what all the outsiders say anyway. They seem normal to me though. Maybe you could ask Patchy about it."

After a bit more walking they reached a large set of double doors. "The Library," Sakuya said as she opened the entrance.

Helena's mouth dropped open as the room opened up before her. She'd been expecting a library like the collegium's at home. A cluttered room filled with shelves of tomes and scrolls.

This library was nothing like that. It was open and vast, so huge that even the twenty foot tall shelves seemed small within it. Book piles littered the ground here and there, along with small reading areas. Looking down the rows of shelves it seemed that the organization got better further in, but the scale of the room was simply immense. Helena couldn't even compare it to any building she'd been in.

"How could anyone afford this many books?" Lyudmila asked, looking around at the wealth surrounding them. "This has to cost more than the mansion. No, twenty times more than the mansion."

"Well, not all of the books are magic," Marisa said. "And Patchy collected most of them in the outside world. That printing press is really useful for non magical production." She began leading them into the library proper. "As for the magical books, a lot of them are written by Patchy herself. I don't think she even remembers all the spells she's created. For someone who talks so much about 'influencing the world' she really loves cranking out spells. The rest she's traded for."

Sakuya led them down a series of quick turns which ended in another reading area, this one equipped with a cauldron and several blackboards. Sitting at a table were two women. Helena quickly recognized them as Marisa's coven members.

"Ah, so these are the unfortunate children forced to suffer your 'guidance,'" Patchouli said as she looked up from her book. The purple haired mage looked them all over. "I am Patchouli Knowledge. Welcome to my library."

The blonde magician nodded. "Alice Margatroid. A pleasure to meet you all." Beside the woman a small doll floated up and curtsied.

Kseniya clapped her hands together at the display. "Cute~!"

Marisa turned to them and waved them towards the empty seats. "So, this might be a camp, but it's a magician camp so I figured a couple of days a week doing actual study and stuff would be a good idea. Patchy agreed to help me out so you can consider her another councilor."

"I'd prefer the term tutor," Patchouli muttered.

"Which is of course why Marisa will never use it," Alice said. The doll master smiled at them. "Please take a seat. Marisa's told us a little bit about you all, but it's nice to finally be able to meet you in person."

As Helena and the others sat down at the table Sakuya stepped forward and set down a pot of tea she'd produced from nowhere. "Well I've performed my duties for now. Do any of you require anything else?"

"That should be it for now. Thank you Sakuya," Patchouli said. The maid nodded in reply and then disappeared, leaving a playing card floating down in her wake.

"I should probably get going as well," Marisa said. "Reimu's gonna be irritable already. Showing up late will only make things worse."

Patchouli snorted. "And that would be bad for everyone in Gensoukyo. Well have fun, Marisa."

Marisa smiled. "Alright, I'll head out so you can all talk about me behind my back for a bit." The black white witch summoned her broom and gave them a lazy salute as she hopped on. "Have fun, and remember loot everything you can."

Helena sighed as Marisa flew off. "Does anyone know how much of that act is a joke?"

"Just enough to keep people guessing," Alice replied. The small doll began pouring tea as she beckoned them to the table. "But enough of that for now. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourselves?"

Helena carefully sipped the tea. To her surprise it was already cooled to a reasonable temperature. Seeing Kseniya was still wowing over the doll and Lyudmila was busy trying to get her sister to stop being embarrassing she decided to go first. "I'm Helena, from Nova Thiva." She hesitated a bit before adding. "I'm part of the Aoede witches."

Alice raised an eyebrow while Patchouli nodded and gave a appraising hum. "A greek witch? I see. And a traditional house at that. Part of a Thiasoi?"

Helena blinked and nodded. "Uh, yeah. We provide blessings, curses and oracular services. We also specialize in contacting dead relatives."

"Very interesting," Alice said. "I didn't know Thiasois still existed. I'm sure you'll have a lot of interesting stories for us." She turned to the sisters. "And how about you two girls?"

Lyudmila turned away from where she'd been failing to keep Kseniya from tickling the flying doll. "Lyudmila Doroshenko. Kseniya's my sister. We're from the Black Forest."

"I see." Patchouli hesitated a few seconds before looking over at Kseniya. "So you and your younger sister are bargainers?"

Helena found her own eyebrow raising as Lyudmila and Kseniya both started in surprise. Kseniya shrank a bit in her chair. "How did you know that?!"

This time Patchouli smirked. "You're from the Black Forest, which follows the traditional magecrafts of Eastern Europe. If you were just the daughters of a plain village wise woman, your parents wouldn't bother sending you all the way to Gensoukyo. If you belonged to a school they'd have waited a year to make sure the Grey Briar College wasn't holding a long term grudge." Patchouli held up a finger. "That means you either are black magicians or bargainers. Given you're opposed to eating human it's the latter."

"Oooh," Kseniya leaned forward eyes sparkling. "That's cool! Like in a detective novel!"

Patchouli shrugged. "Well playing detective is more Remilia's thing, but I admit to enjoying the game." She leaned back in her chair. "So now for the important part. What do you want to research?"

Helena blinked and looked over at Lyudmila and Kseniya. They seemed just as confused by the question. "Uh," she looked at Patchouli. "Aren't we here to study magic? I mean, you have your own school right?"'

"Why would I waste my time forcing my own school on people who might not care for it?" Patchouli asked. "Three things determine how quickly a witch learns magic. Their personal effort, their drive to learn, and their innate talent. Fighting against any of those is a waste of time and effort."

"Innate talent?" Lyudmila asked. "Do you mean internal power?"

Patchouli shook her head. "I mean the magic your mind is best suited for."

"Oh dear," Alice said as her doll clapped its hands over its mouth. "You've gotten her started on metaphysics."

Patchouli gave Alice a pointed glance before continuing her lecture. "A witch's magic is innately changed by how that witch views what is magical." Patchouli pulled out a tome and began flipping through it. "To give some concrete examples, Marisa was born a human and raised by parents who had limited magical training. To her magic was the strange skills of the youkai, curses and necromancy and tricks of the soul." Patchouli opened up the tome revealing a very stereotypical witch picture. "While Marisa sticks to powerful evocations most of the time, in her heart she still considers necromancy and curses the heart of magic, and she excels in those fields when she chooses to use them." Helena frowned. She couldn't see Marisa as an evil witch tossing curses on people from a cauldron, but Mima had hinted at something similar as well.

"On the completely opposite side of the spectrum is Alice," Patchouli said as she flipped the book open to a picture of an artificer working over a doll. "Alice grew up in a magical realm, as the ward of a literal goddess. Ancient mages visited for tea and to argue over taxes. Thus she grew to find what we would consider magical fairly mundane. The ability of a craftsman to slowly build and bring to life what was once lifeless materials was a far greater magic than any simple rote spell."

Alice nodded. "Roughly true, though understand I don't quite agree with her final thesis." Helena wondered how this coven managed to work when all three of the witches disagreed on the details of magic.

Patchouli continued on heedless of the side commentary flipping to a picture of a wizard summoning lightning. "Finally I am a born magician and kabbalist who grew up in a very magical environment, but one where secrecy was paramount. Simple divinations and other easily hidden magics were commonplace, while flashy powerful spells were hidden away and rarely used. Thus I find myself drawn to elemental spells, especially elemental evocations as my magic."

Helena considered the matter carefully. While she was skeptical of Patchouli's thesis as well, she had heard her grandmother talking about natural inclinations towards certain magics. She wasn't sure if Patchouli's reasoning was legitimate or a just so story, but it was worth looking into.

As Helena thought a little more, Lyudmila leaned forward and asked, "So how do we figure out what's magical to us? Are we supposed to psychoanalyze ourselves or something? Because that seems like a good way to just end up confused."

"Well, I was mostly just asking what you were interested in." Patchouli lifted the book up to hide her face. "I've never really considered how to find a witch's innate ability. Most learn it as they go."

"Oh dear. Your infallibility seems to have broken on the first day Patchy," Alice said with a grin. "You sure you don't have anything in your kabbalist tricks?"

"I'll think of something later," Patchouli muttered before coughing a few times. "In any case innate ability doesn't matter right now. I'm more interested in what you kids want to learn. Whatever magic you desire Voile contains it."

Helena mused over the question. 'What she wanted to study,' huh? She looked over at Lyudmila and Kseniya, but the other two seemed equally lost. There was a whole lot of magic, and narrowing it down to one thing to learn was a monumental task.

Finally Lyudmilla turned towards Patchouli and said, "Uh, well, I'm kinda interested in technomagic."

"Eh?" Helena stared at her friend. "Technomagic? Why that? It might be easier to get technology in the Black Forest, but it's still a pain. And no one likes the style."

Lyudmila glared at her. "I like the style. It's interesting. I want to steal some of the consistency of science to use in my magic. Besides it's fun making all the equations line up. I mean, sure I want to learn traditional magics too, but this is one of the only places that might have information on technomagic."

"Not really. It's a very limited specialty, outside of clockwork," Patchouli said as she rubbed her chin. "Still, that's an interesting request. I think I might be able to give you some ideas to work with, both in spells you can modify, and how to do so correctly. I do have one of the best collections of modern engineering texts outside of the kappa."

Alice hummed thoughtfully. "Are you sure Patchouli? You left the outside world in the 50s after all. Some things have to have changed."

Patchouli closed her book. "Of course, some things have changed, but from what I've learned from those spirited away many of the fundamentals are the same. And I'm still the only witch who's driven a car. You might have left the outside world later than me, but you were four."

"Fair enough," Alice conceded.

Patchouli looked over to Lyudmila. "Then it's settled. After your friends have gotten their books, I'll begin assisting you directly."

Lyudmila nodded. "Thank you, Miss Knowledge."

Helena went back to thinking about her own request. Lyudmila had the right idea. If she could learn any magic, she should try to learn the magics she couldn't learn at home.

Thinking about it that way, the answer was obvious. Helena looked at Patchouli and said, "I want to learn combat magic."

"EH?!" It seemed it was Lyudmila's turn to be shocked. "Really?"

She frowned at Lyudmila. "I told you, I don't want to get speared by some 'hero' just because their patron deity gave them immunity to shapeshifting spells. When the next idiot mercenary kicks in the door whining about our blessings not protecting them from their own stupidity I want to just disintegrate him or something. And where better to learn that then Gensoukyo, the land of battle maniacs?"

"Battle Maniacs?" Alice frowned deeply. "I know we have more combat than Makai, but we aren't that bad..."

"We had two fights in less than a week, not even counting the fairy that kicked Lyudmila in the head and ran off," Helena stated.

"Three fights!" Kseniya corrected. "Me and Mr Turtle drove away those tricksters at the shrine!"

Alice buried her head in her hands. "We really are battle maniacs."

Patchouli hid behind her book again. "It seems like a perfectly normal week to me, but I digress. Why ask us instead of Marisa? She's the one who loves blowing things up."

"Well," Helena tried to form her thoughts. "Marisa seems like she just blows things up or burns them. I kind of want a more reasonable set of combat magic. Wards and reactive shields and other tricks. Or at least learn elements other than fire and more fire."

"A perfectly reasonable request," Patchouli replied with a slight smile. "Koakuma?"

The air distorted and a devil in librarian's attire appeared behind Patchouli. "Ah, have they decided on the books they need?"

"Actually I want you to assist Helena here in combat magics." Patchouli handed the devil a book. "The spells in here should work with your shared elemental affinities."

Koakuma gaped at Patchouli. "Um, I'm the weakest here. Why me?"

"Because Alice and I have very unique combat styles. Specifically I'm terrible at fighting, and Alice's style is useless if you don't have an army of dolls," Patchouli replied.

Kokuma blinked then sighed as she nodded. "True enough." The devil turned to Helena. "Hello, I'm Koakuma, Ms Patchouli's familiar. While my magical potential is not as high as any of yours I do know everything there is to know about the library and a lot more combat experience than I ever wanted. I should be able to help you with the basics."

Helena looked over the devil then nodded. "I guess I'll be in your care. Um, what should we study first?"

"If you're asking me that question then I'd say subtle knife techniques," Koakuma replied. "Which means we should get out of everyone else's way first. If you would follow me?"

As Helena stood to follow the demon librarian out, Alice turned to Kseniya. "So, since it seems we're doing pseudo apprenticeships after all, what spells are you interested in?"

"Ah!" Kseniya looked around for a bit. "Well, um, I don't really know what magics I like best yet, but your doll is interesting..."

Helena sighed and walked away, avoiding the ridiculousness that was sure to follow in Kseniya's wake. "You don't think the little girl has it in her to be a puppeteer?" Koakuma asked with as smile as they moved behind a bookcase.

"No," Helena replied. "Seriously, Kseniya's all over the place. She's not obsessive enough to become an artisan mage. At least not yet."

"Well, this might be the spark that sets her on that path," Koakuma replied. "Buuuuut, you're probably right. That girl seems to be someone who flits between ideas. At least for now." Koakuma turned towards her and the devil's grin widened. "She's still young and innocent. Not like her ambitious sister or bloodthirsty friend."

Helena's eyebrow twitched. "Bloodthirsty? Why are you calling me that? Don't tell me this is some demonic trick to make me doubt myself or something."

"Ah no no no. My demonic tricks are only for summoners age sixteen or older," Koakuma replied sweetly. "I'm simply pointing out the truth." The woman held up a finger. "If you just wanted to learn simple combat Marisa's tutelage would be enough. After all she's a master of danmaku."

Koakuma pointed at her. "But you understand the inherent weakness of danmaku. It plays fair, power and skill versus power and skill. Marisa cheats like there's no tomorrow, but in a 'fair' way. She adds more power and skill in technically forbidden ways. That's why everyone lets her get away with it." Koakuma's expression twisted. "But the goal of combat isn't to defeat your foe, it is to kill them. You recognize that a poisoned arrow can settle things just as well as a surprise attack."

Helena folded her arms and looked away from the devil. "Now I'm sure this is some devil trick. I'm not that devious."

"Sure you aren't," Koakuma chirped. "Well it doesn't matter. For now I'll teach you one of the three combat techniques Marisa isn't a master of. Infusion."

"Infusion?" Helena furrowed her brows. "I know how to do that with potions, but I'm guessing this is completely different."

Koakuma nodded. "That's right. In potions infusion is actually a method of extraction. When it comes to combat magic, infusion is a method of placing a secondary spell into a bullet or laser."

"Huh? Like making a bullet fire or lightning," Helena asked.

"No, that's simple elemental invocation," Koakuma replied. "An infusion would be a bullet containing a spell to set your enemy on fire, or turn them into a chicken if it hit."

Helena thought for a moment. "That sounds flashy, but how does it help? Why not just turn the person into a chicken?"

Koakuma nodded. "When is transmogrifying someone hard?"

"All the time," Helena replied dryly. "But it's much harder if you have nothing with a connection to the victim, or if they have any magic resistance or shape changing abilities."

"Correct! Two points to Gryffindor!" Koakuma paused, then pouted as Helena didn't respond to whatever reference she made. "In any case, infusing the spell into a bullet gets around all those issues. It creates a connection to the target physically, bypasses any innate shapeshifting and helps penetrate magic resistance. Of course all of this comes at the cost of needing to hit the target and break their wards."

Helena pondered the issue. "So it's not great against random thugs or skilled magicians, but magical creatures and heroes who are resistant to normal damage." Helena slowly smiled. "This is great!"

"There's a downside though," Koakuma warned. "It lowers the power of both spells. By a great deal if you're just starting out. I imagine if you combined your best curse and best bullet you'd likely just give them a bruise and a summer cold. Over time you'll learn how to best bind spells together, but for now let's work with a simple magic."

The devil girl held out her hand and a giant bubble formed. "This is one of my favorite bullets, and it's fairly easy to create. As an added bonus since it's strongly affiliated with water, it's easy to infuse it with a spell to drench the target. More useful as a prank then an attack, but something almost no one puts up wards for."

Koakuma sent the bubble towards a potted plant where it popped. A millisecond later, water dropped on the target in a miniature deluge. If Helena hadn't been watching closely she might have just thought the bullet was a water blast, but it was definitely two different spells if you looked carefully. She turned to the devil. "So how do I form the spell?"

"Voila," The devil held out a book. "It's more medieval spellcasting, but it shouldn't be too hard for you to figure out. Start with the bullet then work on the infusion."

Helena quickly put together the two spells, then working with Koakuma merged the two into a single bullet that drenched the target. The demon librarian was surprisingly helpful, pointing out small errors in casting and quickly retrieving books when Helena hit a snare.

It took three hours to piece everything together, but eventually Helena found herself throwing infused bullets down the library rows towards targets Koakuma set up. The attacks didn't seem to hurt the constructs much, or get them all that wet, but the mixture of spells was pretty cool. And it was two more spells she'd learned!

"Thanks Koakuma," she said as she scribbled down some notes to expand out later.

Koakuma waved off the praise. "It's my job to help people around the library after all. My raison d'etre even."

"That and corrupting the innocent?" Helena asked as they began walking back to the others. She'd never really had many dealings with western demons, but grandma had given her enough cautionary tales.

"Well as a succubus I prefer corrupting the corruptible. And again, no offense but you're too young," Koakuma sighed. "Also I'm trying to corrupt Marisa and thus even if you were older seducing one of her students would cause problems."

Helena blinked a few times at that. "I thought that was standard practice actually. The students part."

"Well, you Greeks are weird," Koakuma replied. Helena sniffed in response. No one from the Judeo-Christian cosmology had any right to call her lands weird.

They walked into the clearing that contained Patchouli's desk to find Lyudmila toiling over several pages of equations. Meanwhile Kseniya had used her paper to create folded animals that were flying and skittering around her. Kseniya looked up as they walked in, "Ah! Welcome back." The young girl sent a paper sparrow to orbit them.

Patchouli looked up. "Is it time for the lunch break?"

"Lunch?" Lyudmila looked up as well.

"It should be," Koakuma replied.

"Then we can finish this later," Patchouli said. "No reason to stunt our guests' growth just because they can eat magic."

Koakuma twirled around. "That's right! You girls need to grow up big and strong so Marisa stays the shortest magician!"

Helena couldn't help but chuckle. "I don't think that'll be hard."

"I already have her beat in that department," Lyudmila replied smugly.

"Well I still need some inches so I want lunch," Kseniya stated. Helena rolled her eyes, but didn't comment.

Suddenly Sakuya was there, putting down large trays of food. The maid's sudden appearance made Helena lean away, but the smell of the food quickly brought her back. "Gyros," she gasped. It looked more modern than she was used to, but the sight of properly roasted pork and tzatziki were a godsend after so long dining only on Gensoukyo fare.

"Yes. Lady Remilia will be joining us for dinner, so I thought it best to serve Hellenic cuisine now, and save the goulash for then," Sakuya said. "Sadly my knowledge of Mediterranean cuisine is weaker than my knowledge of Eastern European cooking. Still, I hope you find it to your liking."

Lyudmila and Kseniya perked up at that. "Thank you Miss Sakuya!" Kseniya said before rushing at the plates. Helena simply nodded her thanks before grabbing a plate of her own.

"Would you care to join us Sakuya?" Alice asked as she got her own plate.

The maid hesitated momentarily, before nodded and sitting down. "I suppose I can take a slight break. Thank you Alice."

Koakuma sat down as well. "So kids~! Are there any questions we can answer about Gensoukyo or its crazy residents while we eat?"

The three looked at each other, then Helena said, "Well, we haven't met many people outside the shrine maiden, Hatate, Marisa and you. And we already know Marisa's crazy."

"Well you can ask us why we're crazy," Patchouli replied with a slight smile. "It should lead to an interesting discussion at least."

"Alice doesn't seem crazy," Kseniya ventured.

Alice smiled brightly. "Thank you Kseniya dear."

"You just don't know her well enough," Koakuma said as her headwings perked up.

Sakuya nodded. "Indeed. She's perhaps better at hiding her insanity then I am, though I suppose that's only fair, being she is Alice."

"Thanks Sakuya," Alice sighed.

"Ah!" Lyudmila started. Apparently a thought had hit her. "I have a question. About the fairies. Why are the ones here so weird?"

"Hm?" Alice looked mild confused, but Patchouli nodded knowingly.

"I suppose a bargainer would notice that. I actually did some research on that when we first arrived, and I can tell you the simple answer." Patchouli took a drink of tea before continuing. "Nothing."

"Huh?" Helena looked at the purple clad mage in confusion. That couldn't be right.

"There is absolutely no metaphysical difference between the fairies in Gensoukyo and the fairies of the west." Patchouli slowly smiled. "However there is one social difference between the two. There's no nobility here."

Lyudmila's eyes widened. "Huh? You mean...?"

Patchouli nodded. "No winter court, no summer court. No kings or queens or dukes or knights. No protectors of some place or another and no politics. A fairy here is simply a fairy for good or ill, and their power is linked only to their source, and the level of the incident they're involved in."

"Level of the incident?" Kseniya asked.

Sakuya interjected. "Fairies become stronger when there's a big ruckus of some sort. They draw power from the intensity of the troubles it seems."

Patchouli bowed slightly to Sakuya. "And thus the difference. We know fairies can draw power by incidents started by fairies, and what is politics and hierarchy but a giant world spanning incident? A fairy knight is stronger and smarter because that is what a knight must be in order to best the other fairy knights. But if there are no knights..."

"All the fairies have to work with is their source," Helena finished. It was a strange idea, but Helena couldn't see anything wrong with the theory. "But how did that system come about? It can't be because the realms are separated, because the Fae realm has always been distinct. Why are there nobles all through Europe and not here?"

Lyudmila drummed her fingers across the table. "And how did that one fairy know what I was doing? There can't be that many bargainers in Gensoukyo, and they don't know about the skill from outside."

"And why did she want to stop you?" Kseniya asked. "I mean, getting a little fairy's power is kinda weird, but you did the ritual right. I think anyway."

"Ufufufu," Patchouli chuckled. "All fine questions. Perhaps if you find the answers I'll let you take a book home with you."

"But for now you should eat. The food is getting cold. Or warm in the case of this sauce," Alice chided.

Helena returned to the lunch, which was in fact wonderful, but her thoughts couldn't help but fluttering over what she'd learned today both from her studying and outside it. It looked like today might end up being the busiest day she'd had in a long while.


	5. Chapter 5

Helena looked up from the book of magical techniques Patchouli had lent her and rubbed her eyes. The basics were actually very easy, but the different ways to intertwine spells, and how bullets and magical effects interacted with each other were incredibly complex. It looked like something that would require her to eventually decide on a specialty or three, but for now she just wanted to learn as much as she could.

Stretching she glanced over to where Lyudmila was finishing off her circles. "What is that spell anyway? How can anything be worth that much math?"

Lyudmila frowned at her. "I like math. And It's a universal magical power source."

Helena blinked. "A what?"

"A universal magical power source," Lyudmila repeated. She sketched the lines of the circle in the air and it burst to life, glowing softly. "I thought of it reading about power sources in the outside world. I can link this spell to any magic effect or technological device in existence and feed power into it."

"That's... pretty impressive," Helena said. She looked over the complex lines and runes, wondering how Lyudmila had managed to pack all that magic into such a small rune. "How much of that was Patchouli's work?"

"Most of it," Lyudmila admitted. "She was the one who knew how to set up the interface portion. Still I designed the internal mechanisms to allow it to constantly alter pure magical power from one state to any substate. The math is really quite easy when you start using impossible and irrational numbers correctly."

Helena shook her head. "Any impossible numbers I deal with should go beyond the impossible and solve the problem on their own."

Lyudmila blinked then giggled. "Well that'd be nice too, but I don't think the spell would like that."

Helena smirked. "I suppose not."

As Lyudmila turned back to her spell, Helena looked over to where Kseniya was animating paper frogs with the zashiki warashi. The spirit looked relaxed, which meant now might be the best time to put her plan into motion, before Marisa barged in and messed everything up.

She took her time carefully approaching the two kids, before casually waving to get their attention. "Hey." Kseniya and the spirit both looked, up in surprise, but the zashiki warashi didn't do her usual disappearing act. "We never got your name. What should we call you?"

The spirit faded a little, but quickly recovered. "Shizuka," the girl answered.

"Good to meet you," Helena replied then moved away a bit.

"That's a nice name," Kseniya said with her usual cheer. Shizuka blushed and looked away at that, but the spirit was smiling as well.

Before Helena could congratulate herself on the successful plan, Marisa opened the door and strode in, causing Shizuka to disappear again. "Heya kids. Hope you're ready for a little shopping, because today we're going to the village."

"Are we going to be getting some food other than fish?" Lyudmila asked as she closed her spellbook.

Marisa rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah. Look, you're just going to have to suffer the local cuisine. In fact you kids should feel lucky getting weekly meals at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Most youkai don't eat that good, and no human can get rare foods on a regular basis."

Helena grimaced. As much as she hated to admit it, Marisa was probably telling the truth there. "Okay. So what are we buying?"

"The dishes to go with your fish," Marisa replied. "Also some paper and whatever trinkets or clothes or stuff you want to grab. Also you'll get to meet an interesting person or two." Marisa tossed a pouch at Helena which she managed to barely catch. "Don't worry about spending it all, the forest youkai don't tend to bother with money."

Helena opened the pouch as Marisa tossed similar bags to Lyudmila and Kseniya. Inside was a scattering of square gold and silver coins. She had no idea how much that was worth, but it was free money.

Kseniya jingled the bag happily. "Thanks!" The young girl pocketed her papercraft and hopped up. "Oh we should get something to bake with!"

"Well you can decide when you get to the market," Marisa said. "Though you'll probably want to save a bit for the bookstore. Anyway, let's head out before all the good stuff's gone."

"Not sure what we'll find in a village though," Lyudmila muttered as they filed out of the house. Helena could only nod in agreement.

* * *

 

"That's a village?" Lyudmila asked as they flew out over the farmland.

Helena shook her head in amazement. The rice paddies and orchards seemed to stretch for several miles, and the 'village' itself was a walled town almost as big as her Nova Thiva. The short buildings suggested that significantly less people lived here then her home, but it was a city in its own right. "How many people live here?"

"We've been expanding a lot recently so about seven thousand people," Marisa replied. "Don't have a perfectly accurate count of course. But that's about right according to Akyuu."

"Why do you call it a village then?" Kseniya asked.

Marisa shrugged. "Well I mean calling it Gensoukyo village would be weird. This is the village where humans live. The only one really."

"We're complaining about the village part, not the name," Lyudmila retorted. "Seven thousand people is bigger than all but the largest cities in the Black Forest."

Helena nodded. "My city is about twice as big, but we're the third biggest city in the realm."

"Huh?" Marisa seemed pensive. "Guess I'm just used to comparing it to Pandemonium." She shrugged. "In any case we should land. It's bad form to fly in the city, and since you kids are new in town it'd be best to follow the rules for once."

The three girls all nodded. Helena hated it, but cities generally didn't like people just flying about. Maybe it was because everyone wanted to imagine their roofs were secure. In any case they'd all been expecting something like this.

Marisa landed at the northern gate and jauntily tipped her hat to the two men standing near the wheelhouse. One of the men actually smiled and returned the gesture, while the other grimaced. Both however gave Helena and her friends appraising looks. Helena and Lyudmila simply ignored it, while Kseniya waved. Only the first man appreciated the gesture, but neither of them spoke out as the quartet walked into town.

That mixed reaction seemed to continue as they meandered along the packed dirt streets of the city. Some looked at them cautiously. Others just looked curiously. Usually their reaction towards Marisa seemed to match their reaction towards Helena and her friends, though occasionally someone would give Marisa a scowl and then give them an apologetic grin.

"Did you grow up in the village?" Lyudmila asked after the fourth man shook his head and closed a door at their passing.

Marisa shrugged. "Kinda? I ran away when I was around ten so I'm not sure if I really grew up here. But a lot of people remember me." Marisa frowned a little. "I've always kinda had a mixed reputation, but rumors about me going full youkai started spreading recently so I'm officially a bad egg now."

"But you are a witch," Kseniya pointed out.

"The people in the village didn't need to know that," Marisa muttered before sighing. "Now I can't steal as many of Reimu's jobs. Otherwise humans will look bad."

Lyudmila frowned. "Aren't witches one of humanity's weapons against overbearing monsters?"

"Yeah, but it's in that nambly pambly make magic weapons and potions and garbage like that role. People get annoyed if you blast it yourself instead of having some hero do the fun work," Marisa threw up her arms to shrug, then let out a deep sigh. "Well that's not here or there." The elder magician's grin returned. "We've got a market to visit."

A few blocks and a quick turn later and said market was before them. Helena was impressed again by the size. Vendors selling summer fruits and vegetables lined the side of the street with their carts, while men and women stood next to open doorways inviting people in to purchase less perishable goods. Trinket sellers and toy makers had their own stalls as well, while town boards held advertisements for all sorts of special order shops.

"Whoa! So cool," Kseniya said with wide eyes.

"It's pretty impressive," Lyudmila grudgingly agreed. "Though where are the rice sellers? There have to be a lot of them."

"Nice catch there!" Marisa chuckled. "Yeah the rice merchants can set up shop wherever they want, because everyone has to go to them. But, the big sellers just make deliveries anyway."

Helena wasn't really impressed by the size. Her own marketplace back home was probably just as large. But the chance to finally wander around a city and buy things was exciting! She'd been stuck in that backwoods cabin for too long. "What's the average price for goods?" she asked Marisa. "I don't want to get fleeced more than needed."

Marisa frowned and thought for a bit. "Well, I don't really know what's common in your realm and what's rare. Patchy said something about one isshuban being about the same as your obol or kopeck. And the nishuban is four times that. That should give you a baseline. And of course I tossed in a one ryo piece for something big. That should be about four drachma?" Marisa shrugged. "I'll keep anyone from fleecing you all anyway. They know I tend to borrow things from cheats."

Helena blinked. From the weight she'd imagined the small coins to be worth much more, not that she was complaining with a four drachma coin in there. "I didn't think a small land like this would have so much silver and gold."

"Comes with having lots of magicians and youkai. For every pound of gold we use up, we create two pounds," Marisa replied. "Anyway, enough commenting on world currencies. Go buy yourself some youkan or something."

"Right!" Kseniya ran off towards a cart with plums and oranges, while Lyudmila walked over towards a stall with what looked like amulets and figurines. Helena walked a bit further into the market before finding a cart selling pastries. She wanted something a little more filling for a snack.

The man running the stall smiled as she approached and gestured towards the small bread balls he was selling. "Good morning miss. Would you like to buy some mochi? One for one silver."

Helena nodded to herself. Those were the sweet cakes that Marisa had brought over once before. "They seem a bit small for that. Three for two?"

"Well, I suppose I can give a young girl like you a bit of a bargain." The man placed three of the mochi pieces in a paper wrapper before handing them over. Helena paid the man then turned back to the rest of the market before pulling out one of the cakes and taking a bite. It was sweet and chewy unlike the pastries she was used to.

She gave the other mochi balls to Lyudmila and Kseniya in return for some samples of the candied fruits and sugar candy they'd found, then continued exploring the market. There was quite a bit of jade, and many stalls filled with odd toys and pets. She had no idea why someone would want to keep a cricket. Bells and chimes of various materials were common as well.

"Do glass chimes have some sort of religious meaning?" Helena mused as they passed the eighth cart selling them.

"Nah," Marisa replied. "It's the sound. Hearing windchimes helps cool you down. Or at least makes the wind seem stronger." Helena wondered if that was true or not.

"So, why there are no metal chimes?" Lyudmila asked.

Marisa chuckled. "Bad Feng Shui. Metal means money. You don't want money leaving the house, so putting up a metal chime is bad."

"Oh, that makes sense," Kseniya said. Lyudmila and Helena gave each other looks, but didn't contest the logic. It sounded like base superstition, but sympathetic magic did work sometimes.

As they continued down the market, they picked out a barrel of sweet plums to add to their stores as well as a few odd and ends. Lyudmilla snagged herself a elaborate pinwheel, Helena got a small jade frog holding a coin. It was apparently supposed to bring wealth, but Helena mostly thought it would look good in the fountain.

They eventually made it to the center of the market area, a square where the fishmongers sold their wares. It was surrounded by taverns and what were probably the most popular shops. Helena looked around, but none of the immediate stores caught her eye.

"Ah! A hat shop!" Kseniya pointed at a two story store with large display windows. Sure enough there were all types of hats headgear and accessories there. "I wanna look around in there."

The young girl immediately ran in, leaving the rest to follow. Helena didn't really want to get a new hat, but there might be some new jewelry for her so she didn't hesitate before entering as well.

As soon as they were through the doors a woman was walking up to greet them. "Welcome. New customers? How rare." The woman bowed, giving them full view of her own elaborately frilled sun hat. "Well no matter where you're from, the Kirisame hat shop is happy to serve you."

"Wait, Kirisame?" Helena asked looking at the woman once again. Their hostess had the brown hair normal to the populace, but her eyes were a soft gold color, and the woman was barely taller than Helena was despite being obviously older.

The woman seemed befuddled at Helena's question. "Hm? Is there something odd about our name?"

"Sorry Megumi, but they kinda met me first." Marisa walked in followed by a wide eyed Lyudmila. "These kids are from a different realm you see."

"Different realm?" Megumi blinked, then shook off her confusion and wagged an accusatory finger at Marisa. "Well that doesn't matter. What matters is you're apparently dragging the family name through the mud. Again. Despite being disowned."

"Hey now, I come from a long line of disowned Kirisames. Family curse and all that," Marisa replied. "Besides they hate me because I'm doing good things for once. I'm running a camp for these kids."

Megumi's frown abated slightly. "Really?" She looked over at Helena and her friends. "Your parents know you're here and everything?"

"Yeah," Lyudmila sighed. Helena simply nodded.

Megumi smiled again. "Well that's fine then. I can even throw in a little discount for helping my cousin do respectable work." The woman turned to Kseniya. "So was there a specific hat you were interested in?"

"Well I like my hat but," Kseniya took her witch hat off and showed it to Megumi, "it's getting a little small for me."

"Hit your growth spurt, eh?" Megumi said. "Well we can work with that. Let's see, if we give this some frills and layers like Marisa's hat there, we should be able to get you something that will last whether you grow up to be tall or," she looked at Marisa with a taunting grin, "even if you don't."

Marisa laughed. "Want me to take off my hat and compare heights with you, cousin?"

The saleswoman sighed. "You win this one." Turning back to Kseniya she selected a buckled hat with a wider brim. "This is the in design this year, though I can promise you the base fashion is very standard. Now if you'll just let me make some measurements..."

Helena turned away from the details and began to look over the other headwear and jewelry the place had. Lyudmila moved over to her side. "You aren't really planning on getting anything, are you," her friend asked.

"Maybe. There are usually some nice accessories in places like these," Helena replied. She shook her head. "It's weird we went into the one store where the owners are related to our 'counselor' though."

"It's more weird that they don't seem to have any problems with us being magicians," Lyudmila replied.

"That's because they don't see you as youkai," Marisa interjected. "Most of the first families were spiritualists or human magicians. Since you lot are still kids, they figure you're just humans dabbling in spiritualism. Most people don't get the whole human youkai magician split."

Helena looked over the accessories. "So how did you end up as a witch while the rest of your family is running a hat shop?"

"That's a long story," Marisa replied. "But this is the clean and honest branch of the Kirisame family, so everything's top quality."

From what Helena had seen, Marisa was telling the truth. There was no fine jewelry here, but a wide array of simple accessories, usually in silver and copper. She looked over the bracelets and torques the store had while Lyudmila idly looked over rings.

"Now that I've helped your friend, was there something you wanted miss?" Helena blinked then looked up to find Megumi had glided right next to her. "Perhaps a different hat for the summer?"

Helena turned to the woman as she shook her head. "I'll be keeping the hat. It helps tell all the drunk nobles to leave me alone unless they want to be turned into a newt by my grandma."

"Eh?" Megumi's eyebrows shot up. "Your home village sounds like a much less... respectful place than ours. Is that why your parents had you come here?"

Helena winced at the slight against her city. "Well there are a lot of nice people in Nova Thiva. Just... not all of the people in charge. We're way better then the Athenians or the Spartans. Anyway I'm looking for bracelets or other accessories."

Megumi didn't seem to accept her defense of the Theban people but turned back to business. "Hm. Your hair really isn't the type for ribbons like Marisa's is. Perhaps a necklace of some sort? Do you usually wear sleeveless dresses?"

"Yeah," Helena said. "Unless it's raining."

"Alright then. Let's look over here." Megumi led her to a table with necklaces torques and forearm bracelets. "We'll have to do some experimenting given you're working with a mixed outfit already, but I'm sure we can find something reasonable. I'll grab some items and you can just nod or shake your head if you want to try them on okay?"

Megumi started to sort through her wares, occasionally turning towards Helena and showing one off for consideration. The items were usually nice, but Helena had to admit not a lot went well with her current outfit.

"So how has my cousin been doing?" Megumi asked as she looked around.

"Um, I can't really say for sure. I mean she and her friends won that mage contest. That was a big deal in the magical world." Helena shrugged. "Around here she just seems normal. Well not normal but everyone seems familiar with her annoying self."

Megumi laughed. "Yeah the main branch of the family were always a bunch of hotheads. It's become something of a legend really." The woman's expression grew more somber. "But our family still worries about her. Especially now that she's changed."

Helena decided not to point out that she was a true magician and instead asked the question on her mind. "Were you close before she became a youkai magician?"

"Not really," Megumi replied. The woman held out a bracelet with far too many gems on it, and Helena shook her head. Returning to the search the woman continued. "Our family branches haven't been close at all. But Marisa's well... unique." Megumi sighed. "We were all certain she'd died when she ran off into the night to become a witch. And when she returned with that evil spirit we were certain she'd become possessed."

Megumi's expression lightened a bit. "And then somehow it turned out she was on the human's side all along. She became friends with the Hakurei maiden, started going out to stop disruptive youkai, and generally helped the village out." Megumi chuckled. "Not that she'd ever put it like that."

"I dunno," Helena mused. "She sounded like she was still interested in the village. Talked about being annoyed that she couldn't act as openly."

"Really?" Megumi smiled. "We were worried you see. She's been spending so much time with the demon witch after all. Well and the puppeteer, but that woman is more reasonable."

Helena hesitated a bit before throwing out one of her grandma's sayings. "Being a witch means bargaining with unsavory characters."

Megumi slowly nodded. "I suppose that's true. And if Marisa's starting to get involved in famous magical duels I guess she's aiming higher than just being a part time magician and full time freelancer."

The woman's attention shifted to a box she pulled out. "Ah! There we go." Megumi held out a thin torque of darkened bronze. "Try this."

Helena slipped the piece on and checked a mirror. The accessory matched her robes and hat without looking incredibly ostentatious. "This is... pretty nice! I like it!"

"Knew I could find something!" Megumi patted her on the shoulders before heading back towards the front. "Now let's see if your little friend is as pleased with her new hat, and we can discuss prices while I make jabs at my wayward cousin."

Kseniya was pleased with her new hat, though that was never really in doubt. Even Lyudmila had to admit the white lace made it look more cute rather than severe. Helena was a little worried about buyer's remorse herself, but she found herself happy with her new look even after she'd walked out the door.

After that Marisa took them to a noodle restaurant on a side street. Helena and Marisa both got a soup in a rather heavy pork broth, while Lyudmila got thick noodles in some sauce that burned just to look at and Kseniya got more delicate thin noodles, which she proceeded to spoon peppers on. Helena had no idea why the sisters enjoyed burning their mouths, but given her comments on the matter always led to Kseniya trying to show her how 'good' paprika was, she kept her mouth shut.

"You girls about finished with shopping?" Marisa asked as they finished up their meal.

"I've got my big purchase in," Helena replied.

"Yep!" Kseniya agreed, fiddling happily with her new hat.

Lyudmila shrugged. "I was planning to splurge at this bookstore myself."

"Hm, well getting the owner to sell a lot of stuff is hard, but there should be a few writings she'll actually part with," Marisa mused. "Well, anyway let's head over."

Marisa led them back out across the crowded square, then down a side market towards the west end of town. The crowds quickly thinned, becoming more local residents and buyers who wanted to shop outside the big markets.

As they began walking past the last stalls Lyudmila froze and turned to look at one of the passers by. Helena blinked then followed her friend's gaze. At a glance the woman Lyudmila was looking at just seemed to be a fashion disaster, wearing a garish red cloak with a ridiculously exaggerated collar. However, after a bit of studying Helena could detect the faint aura of a chimera around the woman.

She leaned closer to Marisa and tapped the woman's shoulder. "Hey," she whispered.

"Oi! You kids!" Helena jumped as a nearby windchime seller yelled at them. "Come over here!"

The three looked at each other in confusion, but Marisa feigned a serious air and waved them over. "Go on. You heard the man."

Helena glared at Marisa before walking over to the man's cart. Lyudmila opened her mouth to protest then shook her head and followed, while Kseniya looked confused and worried. When they'd all gotten next to the cart the man leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Listen you kids, I know you're outsiders but this is important. You don't tell that girl that she's a youkai you hear?"

"But she's a Dullahan," Lyudmila hissed in reply. "A headless spirit that slaughters the living."

The man shushed them and looked to make sure the red caped woman was continuing out of earshot before glaring at them again. "Look I don't know what that Dullahan thing is, but Sekibanki there's a rokurokubi. Comes from a long line of them." The man sighed. "Poor woman doesn't even realize it." The man pointed sternly at them. "And don't you dare go telling her! If she learns she's a youkai she'll go crazy or kill herself or both. Keep it nice and quiet and let her go about her life."

Kseniya nodded fiercely. "We won't say a word."

"Yeah," Helena agreed. "No good reason to ruin someone's life."

"So long as you all are fine with it my lips are sealed," Lyudmila said.

The man sighed and relaxed. "Sorry to be so harsh girls, but it's important." He smiled weakly. "Anyway you all can go about your business now. Have fun."

"Right. Thanks for the warning," Lyudmila said as they went back to Marisa.

"Why didn't you warn us?" Kseniya asked when they reached their 'teacher's' side.

Marisa chuckled. "Come along. I'll show you."

The blond magician picked up her pace a bit, leading them down the market street, before turning into an alley. Marisa went about halfway down the side street before turning again. Helena stopped as she found herself looking straight at the woman they'd noticed earlier.

The red caped woman grimaced at her, then looked over at Marisa. "What, going to blackmail me again? Or did you just want to introduce your campers to the town youkai?"

"I'd never blackmail you 'banki. At least not for this," Marisa said. "Just figured I'd have the girls meet you in person so they know not to tell the villagers you're a youkai."

"Huh? But-" Kseniya started speaking but Helena managed to cover the young girl's mouth. She wanted to see what Marisa was up to. Kseniya of course batted her hand away, but Lyudmila had come up and put a hand on the girl's shoulder. Kseniya just pouted and let Marisa continue.

"So yeah, Sekibanki here hangs out in the village. There's a couple of youkai that do that, mostly the ones that are just humans with minor abilities.

Sekibanki frowned. "Hey getting multiple heads isn't a 'minor' ability. And I'd like to see you live without your head attached."

"I'm sure you would," Marisa laughed.

"Excuse me miss Sekibanki," Lyudmila said, "but why do you live in the village? Isn't living with the other youkai safer?"

"Those jerks?" Sekibanki rolled her eyes. "Yeah no thanks. I like having a real house and stuff. Fighting with the forest for a yard seems like a pain. I'll stay here where the fairies are less annoying and people steal my meals less. It's not like anyone who isn't a magician will find me out anyway."

Marisa's smile twisted. "So kids, don't let anyone in the village know about her being a youkai. That would be a problem for her."

Sekibanki nodded. "Please."

"No problem," Helena said dryly.

"It... should be fine," Lyudmila said.

Kseniya looked like she wanted to say something, then just nodded.

Sekibanki sighed and adjusted her cape. "Right, so thanks I guess. Anyway I need to get back to my errands so later." The rokurokubi turned and left.

Marisa waited a bit before turning to the girls and winking. "So there you go."

"But..." Kseniya waved her hands, trying to gather words. "Why? Why let them both think they have the other group fooled?"

"Because they're having fun!" Marisa replied happily. Her smile faded a bit. "And because neither of them would be happy if they knew what the others knew. Sekibanki would be embarrassed that the villagers are all protecting her from herself, and the villagers would be terrified if they knew Sekibanki was a full fledged youkai with powers capable of leveling a house. Maybe they could come to terms, but I'm not gonna be the one to force the issue."

Lyudmila nodded. "It's the same back home Kseniya. We live on the outskirts of town for a reason remember."

Helena shook her head. "Why obsess about chimera and magicians when the gods are more dangerous?"

"Your gods just suck," Kseniya replied. Lyudmila nodded while Marisa shrugged.

"Hecate doesn't suck," Helena muttered. "Anyway at least it means I can stay in the city without people getting all weird."

Marisa nodded pensively. "Silver lining to every cloud, eh? Well I'm sure we can chat more about whose home is the least backward later. Right now we need to get to the bookstore before it closes."

Her civic pride mollified by the promise of books Helena followed Marisa down the streets of the town. As they continued through the village Helena noticed the buildings becoming bigger, and the number of houses that had enclosed yard increased. This was apparently the "rich" section.

Finally Marisa turned off into a small store area. It looked mostly like furniture sellers and seamstresses but on one corner was a smaller two story shop 'Suzunaan.' As Marisa led them towards the entrance a girl about their age ran out, barely avoiding Marisa. "So sorry," the girl said as she bowed then turned and ran off.

"Huh," Lyudmila stared after the girl. "Was she a youkai too?"

Marisa blinked. "I kinda doubt it. The rich people are a whole lot more jumpy about youkai then the rest of the village. The only reason we can wander around here is because we're just magicians."

"She seemed nice," Kseniya mused.

"In the five seconds we saw her," Helena replied. "Anyway, let's check out the books."

Bells chimed as they walked through the entryway. Unlike Voile, this bookstore was more reasonably sized, and far more crowded. Scrolls and writings of all sorts were arranged across shelves and tables, based more on how the objects could be made to fit without damage then organization. Still it was clean, and some of the objects even had prices. Behind the far desk a woman with bells holding her hair up in twintails looked up from her reading and adjusted her glasses. "Ah, welcome to Suzunaan!"

"Heya Kosuzu," Marisa said pulling out a small tome. "I brought another grimoire for ya. Mind if I borrow a couple of books in return?"

"Not a chance Marisa," Kosuzu replied without losing her smile. "You know the rules. One for one trades." She looked over at Helena and her friends. "Oh! Are these the foreign students Reimu was talking about?"

"Bah. Is Reimu spoiling my secrets again?" Marisa pouted briefly before walking over and setting the tome down on Kosuzu's desk. "Well, you're one hundred percent correct. These are the kids suffering through summer camp with me. I'll let them introduce themselves."

"Emphasis on the suffering," Helena muttered. "I'm Helena Aoede."

Kseniya hopped forward. "Hi! I'm Kseniya Doroshenko."

Lyudmila turned from where she was pouring over the shelves. "Lyudmila Doroshenko." She tapped a tome. "You've got a very impressive collection here. But aren't some of these books dangerous?"

"Well a feeeeew are," Kosuzu clasped her hands together. "But I have them under control I promise! And most of them are pretty harmless if you know how to treat them right."

Marisa shook her head. "You've been possessed how many times this year?"

"Only once! The second was a doppelganger so it doesn't count," Kosuzu replied. "Anyway I keep the really dangerous books sealed. Everything up here should be safe. Completely safe."

Helena made a mental note to check any books for curses before she touched them. Still that was something of a good sign. At least the books would be interesting.

"Do you have any spellbooks?" Lyudmila asked.

Kosuzu shook her head. "Not since the last time Marisa visited. Those tend to sell out fast. There's some youkai histories in those shelves, and some magician writings over here. Also there are a number of diaries and picture books if you're interested in researching a particular youkai group. Ah! And of course we have the latest tengu manga."

Lyudmila headed over towards the magician's writings while Kseniya wandered to where the tengu manga was. Helena on the other hand wandered over to where the youkai histories were held. Chimera in her realm tended to be unique, or if there were many like the cyclops they tended not to write their histories, keeping instead to secret epic poems. She was curious as to how a nonhuman race saw the world.

However her investigations soon hit a snag. No matter what translation spell she whispered over the pages the symbols refused to form into words. There were ways around that of course, but they always stole intricacy from the works. It wouldn't be any fun to read, and it wouldn't tell her anything about the writer's thoughts. Sighing she shelved the book she was working on back and began scanning for something she could actually use.

"Having trouble with the youkai writing?" Helena looked up to see Kosuzu smiling down at her.

"Yeah," she admitted. "Maybe one of my aunts could decipher these, but it's beyond me. Why do you even stock books that can't be read easily anyway? The average person has to be less adept at spellcraft then I am. Is it easier for people who speak Japanese?"

Kosuzu shrugged. "I don't know. I spent a few years honing my ability to read, well, anything so I don't have any issues. I know a number of people who learn the writings of the major youkai races as well." The woman frowned. "But that's a problem. There's no point in a book that you can't read. Hm... How to fix that..." Kosuzu thought for a moment then slapped her fist into her palm. "Aha! Of course. You can read Japanese, so archaic Japanese shouldn't be hard at all."

Kosuzu walked over to another shelf and pointed at the bottom two rows. "These are books from the oni, tsuchigumo and other youkai that use Japanese for their writing. You should be able to read those."

Helena leaned down and smiled as her translation spell showed her the titles. "Yeah! That works. Thanks."

"No problem," Kosuzu replied before heading off to help Lyudmila.

Now that she could read the books she found her search progressing much faster. She quickly decided against buying any of the oni books as they mainly focused on drinking, fights and why oni were the best. She could get books like that at home. The writings of futaguchi no onna on the other hand (whatever those were) had a lot more variety in subject, but there was no real community.

In the end she decided on two works from the tsuchigumo, who apparently were spider shapeshifters. One was an epic history of the race, while the other was a series of poems. The epic was somewhat dry and uninteresting, but the poetry was excellent, covering a wide array of subjects from simple daily life and romance, to sweeping critiques of society. And best of all she could tell the poems had several layers of allegory and historical references, meaning every time she managed to chew through some of the epic more of the poem's brilliance would open up to her. She'd be rereading this even when she went back home.

Grabbing the two she headed up to the front desk where Kseniya was buying a stack of manga. Seeing the big volumes were fairly cheap, if cheaply made, she grabbed one as well just for passing the time.

After finishing selling and bagging Kseniya's stuff Kosuzu looked over Helena's purchases. "Ah, that's a fairly famous youkai history there. One of the few I've got multiple copies of. Tsuchigumo histories don't usually sell well though. It's a shame."

"Well I can understand why this one doesn't sell well, but I need it for the other book," Helena said.

"Hm, the poetry?" Kosuzu nodded. "I can see that. These are supposed to be the collected works of a noble, so they use a lot of references." The woman packaged up the three tomes. "Anyway I hope you enjoy them."

"Thanks," Helena said.

She stepped back just as Lyudmila emerged with an armload of books. Marisa whistled. "Huh and I thought I was a hefty reader. That's a lot of material. Planning some spell research or just grabbing anything you could find?"

"Well they had an annotated copy of the 'Hammer of Shades' so I had to get that. And a full copy of the 'Guide to the Created!' Those are rare since the church started burning them. And there's a series of notes from someone who calls themselves 'the Gearmaster' which are all insane, but have great technomagic ideas..." Lyudmila set the tomes down with a solid thud. "There's just dozens of scraps to pick through. I'm surprised no one's looted them before!"

"Well most of that is technomagic or artifice," Marisa said. "There's really only one technomancer and a dozen artificers, and they all use their own styles. Alice is probably the only western artificer, which is why you'll never find a tome on dollmaking here."

"More for me then," Lyudmila replied happily.

Kosuzu shook her head. "I'm not used to so many books being bought at once. But I suppose it's alright since most of those aren't really youkai books."

Marisa sniffed. "Why not? They were written by youkai."

"Magician youkai notes don't count," Kosuzu replied. "And no I didn't just make that up to avoid buying your shopping lists."

"Drat," Marisa muttered.

As Kosuzu and Lyudmila bagged her haul, Lyudmila asked, "Don't you have problems with youkai wandering in? I can tell you've got some very powerful tomes here."

"Well we had a few visitors, but most of them just pretend to be human and buy the books, so that's okay," Kosuzu said. "It's not like they're staying in the village or anything." Helena wondered how likely that assertion actually was.

"Oh?" Marisa raised an eyebrow. "That's different from what you used to say. I remember you getting really worked up about Kokoro way back when."

"The menreiki?" Kosuzu laughed weakly. "Well I was younger then. And she was a little suspicious. Seriously though, Akyuu's the paranoid one."

Marisa laughed. "I suppose that's true. Comparatively."

"Should I be more suspicious of the youkai in my store currently?" Kosuzu replied.

"Yeah, but only because I'm a thief," Marisa said with a tip of her hat. "Later Kosuzu. I imagine these girls will want to loot your collections again in the future, so business should be looking up."

"Well if you have any youkai writings from your realms please consider trading with me," Kosuzu said as they exited. "I don't want to run out of stock."

While they were heading towards the city gates Helena looked over at Lyudmila, "Why a book on flesh golems on all things? I understand the rest but..."

"Oh, yeah those parts are lame," Lyudmila said. "I'm more interested in the theory. Honestly the writer's concepts of magic are some of the worst I've seen, but his theories on the supernatural are pretty spot on."

"She likes the stories," Kseniya said.

Lyudmila shot her sister a dark look, while Helena smirked. "I see I see."

"So you can appreciate blackmail," Marisa said. "I was afraid you were completely dull." Helena's smile vanished. "Anyway the rest of the day is all yours."

Leaving the village was just as easy as getting in. The guards gave them a little closer look, but they mainly seemed to be focusing on Marisa rather than Helena and her friends. After they were through the gates and on the road they took to the sky.

As they flew back Lyudmila pulled up next to Marisa. "I'm kinda confused about things here. All of the villagers seem really worried about youkai, but the village is practically crawling with them. Not just the bookstore, but that dullahan as well. And if they have house spirits they've got to let them in their houses. It seems so contradictory."

"It is," Marisa replied simply. "And there's more then that. You don't think the fish all come from the streams here do you? The wood is mostly from human loggers I'll admit, but all of our metal is brought in from outside too. And all those rich merchants aren't just selling to noble houses. Gensoukyo village is pretty much a youkai based economy."

"But why?" Kseniya asked. "If the humans rely on youkai so much why do they fear them so much?"

"Or at least pretend to fear them so much," Helena remarked.

Marisa shrugged. "It's... complicated. And don't think it's just the humans either. All the youkai around talk about how they don't really need humans anymore, but they're dependent on the village for all the luxuries they adore. Remilia's furniture doesn't appear out of nowhere you know, and while not many youkai are as ostentatious as vampires, most of them aren't willing to give up the human trappings they picked up. Sure the tengu and kappa can do their own thing, but that's a small minority of youkai. The rest are dependent on the village to let them continue living half in the wild and half in civilization."

Helena mused on those words for the rest of the flight. Gensoukyo was far more complex than it seemed.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been a week and a half (and four duels) since they'd arrived in Gensoukyo, so Helena had started to believe she understood what Gensoukyo looked like. Lots of small hills and rivers surrounded by forests.

As Marisa led them towards what she called "The Nameless Hill," Helena began to realize how wrong she was. She'd had a brief glimpse of a bamboo forest as they flew along, and there was a gorge that made no sense whatsoever along the way. And the hills here... well...

The hills here still had patches of forest. But most of them were instead covered in flowers. She recognized the mustard plants and what looked to be lilac. But the most impressive field was a swath covered entirely in sunflowers, their heads gently following Helios' journey across the sky.

"Strange," Lyudmila said as they circled the patch.

"Huh? What's strange?" Helena asked as she looked over at her friend.

Lyudmila was frowning and squinting at the flowers below. "Those sunflowers. Sunflowers in bloom shouldn't follow the sun as closely. They do that right before they bloom. And there's an odd power here."

Marisa slowed her flight to tip her hat. "Clever girl. Yeah these sunflowers aren't exactly normal. Which is of course why we came here. It's time for you kids to get another spellcard in your arsenal, and the woman here is one of the best people to show you your weaknesses."

"Oh is that what you came here to have me do?"

Helena looked down to see a woman in a plaid skirt and vest carrying a flowery parasol float out from the rows of sunflowers towards them. The green haired woman looked relaxed, but Helena felt uneasy as she approached.

"Heya, Yuuka," Marisa said with a wave. "How've you been?"

Yuuka smiled as she finished flying up to their height. "I've been fine Marisa. It's been something of a dull summer so far, but that looks like it's about to change." The youkai woman turned her gaze to where Helena and her friends were. "Though helping you babysit doesn't seem that interesting. And I'm not the type to hold back, even against kids." The woman sighed. "Not that it mattered against you ever."

"Well I was a strange girl," Marisa chuckled before looking over at them. "Yuuka's way beyond your weight range, but I figured it'd do you some good fighting against someone who can't fly rings around you. Give you a chance to see how your spellcards work better too."

"Unless she just uses her phenomenal power to blast us," Helena noted.

Kseniya nodded. "That does seem like the smart thing."

"Indeed." Yuuka unfurled her floral parasol and sat in the air. "You'd have to bribe me to hold back, Marisa. I enjoy playing with my sparring partners a little, but letting three amateurs just fire spells at me would hurt my reputation."

Marisa's cheery expression faded. "Alright. What do you want Yuuka?"

"First I want tea," Yuuka said with a grin. "It's been so dull without my servants. Then I'll play with your students." Yuuka's grin widened into a predatory smirk. "And then we have a match ourselves at full power. I want to see what becoming a youkai has done for you."

"Two cards only, and if you beat me you have to use your flowers to keep an eye on the kids while I recover," Marisa replied. "I wanna be able to go home today." Helena's eyes widened. Marisa was admitting she could lose? Just how strong was Yuuka?

Yuka thought for a moment. "Three cards, but only if the second doesn't decide the fight."

"Agreed," Marisa said. The woman's grin returned. "And I brought some strawberry tarts I swiped from Sakuya, so pick a tea that goes well with that."

"Oh excellent," Yuuka said. "Please, follow me."

As Marisa and Yuuka slowly floated down to the flower fields, Helena and her friends huddled up. "Do you have any idea what that woman is?" Helena asked.

Lyudmila shook her head. "Not a clue. It looks like she's got a connection to the plants but..."

"A nature spirit," Kseniya said quietly. "But not fey."

Helena frowned. "Perhaps a dryad of the flowers? Or a minor goddess?" Sighing, she flew to catch up with the two adults. They'd learn the truth soon enough. Either that or get shot in the face.

Maybe both. Gensoukyo was weird.

They followed Yuuka into a shallow valley where a small table sat between two flower patches. To Helena's relief the table had its own umbrella to keep them from frying under the sun, though it was still hot. Helena found herself seated next to their host while Marisa took the other seat next to Yuuka, so she forced herself to pretend she wasn't mildly worried about Yuuka's power. She probably wasn't successful, but then lots of gods and chimera liked inspiring a bit of fear in those around them.

Marisa did introductions as Yuuka poured the tea. The youkai seemed mildly interested in hearing they were from out of Gensoukyo, but not too surprised. "Interesting. I've seen both those realms from the dream realm, though neither are near my mansion."

Helena nearly choked on the first sip of tea. "You live in Morpheus' realm?" Her respect for the woman increased greatly. Lyudmila and Kseniya seemed impressed as well.

"I winter there." Yuuka replied. "Snowdrops and poinsettia are nice flowers, but Spring and Summer are my prefered seasons. And my realm isn't in the true dreaming. Merely a border realm. One of the areas least visited."

"So you're a magician then too?" Lyudmila asked.

Yuuka shook her head. "Not really. More a dabbler. Still over the centuries I've picked up a fair amount of knowledge here and there. I mostly learned how to wander where I wished. I dislike being cooped up."

Marisa nodded. "I stole my favorite spell from Yuuka actually."

"Which is why I'm interested to see what you've done with it," Yuuka said. The woman took a cookie from the pile. "But enough about magic for right now. Tell me children. What do you think about the flowers here?"

"They're really pretty," Kseniya said. "It's so colorful." Helena nodded.

Lyudmila hesitated before asking, "Did you create this field?"

Yuuka laughed lightly. "Ah, no. I admit my power almost certainly made the flowers here a little hardier, but most of it is just the soil. It's very fertile here. I come here because it blooms even without my power."

Helena slowly nodded. The joy of creating something with your own hands was nice, but if you wanted to relax and enjoy the view, why not just find a place you liked?

"What makes the ground here so good?" Lyudmila pondered.

"The souls of the dead," Yuuka replied with a twisted grin. Her friends looked shocked, but Helena's eyes narrowed. How much was Yuuka just messing with them?

"Well she's kinda right," Marisa said begrudgingly. "The Sanzu river runs near here. You guys call it the Styx I think. The ghosts of those not yet ready to leave often give their last wishes and regrets to the flowers around here. Which of course makes it really dangerous for youkai. Only Yuuka, that Medicine girl and a few other strong youkai stick around here long."

Helena's frowned. "Dangerous? How so?"

"Human belief and emotion are the source of youkai power," Yuuka said. "Most ghosts are pathetic souls, but a few have very strong grudges or regrets. Those ghosts could overwhelm a youkai and change their nature." Yuuka shrugged. "Of course my magical abilities make me immune to such nonsense. And that Medicine girl's something of a unique case because of her obsessions. She's possessing herself you might say."

As Helena mused on that Yuuka pushed the plate towards them. "But that's a depressing conversation. Come, tell me about the plants of your realms."

They chatted for a while like that, with Yuuka steering the conversation mostly and Marisa occasionally throwing it off track. While Helena couldn't sense anything of the divine about the woman, she decided that Yuuka did fit her concept of demigod pretty well. Powerful, self centered to the point of arrogance, but generally polite.

When the tea was finally done, Yuuka stood and carefully retrieved her parasol. "Well then, I believe I promised I'd help you each practice your new spellcards. Shall we go one by one? I shall do my best to time them out, but I will fire back to keep you honest."

Helena palmed her card. "Right. Can I go first?"

"Oh?" Marisa raised an eyebrow. "Not going to let your friends go first so you can study Yuuka for a weak point?"

"First she's not going to show us any real weak points," Helena replied dryly. "Second, her weak points won't change my spellcard. Even if I see something I'm stuck with this spell."

Yuuka chuckled. "Clever and bold enough to act on that. I like that." Yuuka slowly floated over to an area over a field of grass. "Come then. Let's fight here so we don't damage the flowers."

"Good luck," Lyudmila said as Helena flew up to face off against the youkai woman.

Helena rubbed the spellcard a few times for luck before pointing it at Yuuka. This was a combination of what she'd learned from both Koakuma and Marisa, and she wasn't one hundred percent certain it would work, but she thought the theory was sound. She took a deep breath and made her declaration. "Persephone's Temptation."

Four orbs spun out to orbit her, each laying down a massive cluster of bullets. They were all weak, and completely unaimed, but their purpose wasn't to hit her opponent, it was to keep them in the area of her true attack. Raising her arm she focused and began summoning head sized crimson orbs that she fired at her opponent. These shots were slower, but aimed.

Yuuka raised an eyebrow, but simply glided along, leading her shots. As the youkai casually dodged she returned fire; some slow sunflower bullets that forced Helena to circle her target.

This meant her trap actually sprung earlier than she expected. As she circled Yuuka one of her orbs hit the bullet walls meant to contain the woman. The bullet shattered with a pop, triggering the spell she'd infused it with. A second attack spell that spit three seeds towards Yuuka.

Yuuka noticed the attack immediately, but it was too late. Three more of her mines reached the limits of their flight and exploded, trapping Yuuka in a crossfire. Helena reveled in her foes surprise. Maybe she'd get lucky!

Helena's hopes were quickly dashed as Yuuka carefully spun and somehow glided right through the smaller fire. The youkai smiled. "Ah of course. The three pomegranate seeds. A very nice spell, aesthetically. But you'll need a lot more mines to catch someone like me."

Growling Helena tried to pick up the pace, but it didn't matter. Yuuka somehow glided effortlessly through the tiniest of gaps. Everyone else made their dodges look exciting and quick. Yuuka just looked like she was taking a stroll and the bullet were just forcing her to take a different path. Worst of all increasing the rate of fire drained the spell's magic faster.

Sure enough about thirty seconds later Helena's spell collapsed leaving Yuuka without even a scratch.

Light applause caused her to glare over where her friends and 'tutor' were watching. The older magician was clapping of all things. Seeing her glare Marisa stopped clapping and sighed. "Hey kid, take it easy. That's a damn good spell, you just need to practice it more. Okay, a lot more. But the basic design is solid. You'd probably take out a fairy with that no problem, and as you get better and faster with it, you'll give even people like me and Yuuka problems."

"As I said, very pleasing aesthetically," Yuuka said. "And aesthetics are one of the key points of spellcards."

Helena grimaced then bowed her head in apology. "Sorry. Guess I was getting ahead of myself."

"Well it's understandable to be a little upset after a loss," Marisa replied kindly. "Anyway we've got two more spells to go. Which of you kids wants to go second?"

Lyudmila stepped up a hair faster than her sister. "Let's get this over with."

Helena flew back down while her friend moved up to face off against Yuuka. Lyudmila took a few deep breaths while the youkai woman simply twirled her parasol. Then the slavic witch threw a card into the air. "Runes of Yggdrasil."

The card began to glow brightly. Just as Helena was starting to wonder where the "attack" part of the spellcard was, a run formed right in front of Yuuka before exploding into bullets.

Yuuka of course glided right between the bullet fragments. Another rune appeared before Yuuka and exploded but the youkai's slow path kept bringing her out of danger. The third rune was a red sigil that shattered differently, but Yuuka easily staggered her flight to dodge. "Hm? Are these nordic runes?" the youkai asked casually as she threw out some bullets in return. "I've never seen writing like that before."

Lyudmila frowned deeply as she worked to twist and turn out of the way of Yuuka's counterfire. Apparently her spell wasn't very mobile. "They're the magic runes of the gods. If they were simple runes they wouldn't blow up!"

"Silly me," Yuuka said as she grazed another explosion. "It's too bad they take so much of your concentration."

The youkai woman pointed her umbrella at Lyudmila, and a single bullet flew forth, striking the witch in the face. "Ow!" Lyudmila rubbed her forehead as the spell broke.

"Hrm," Marisa shook her head. "That one, needs some work."

Yuuka was more direct. "Messy and unrefined. You should have the runes appear randomly. And stabilize them more so you can dodge yourself."

"Well targeted blasts can be okay," Marisa said. "But you have to make the explosions more random. A pattern like that won't stop anyone who isn't careless. And yeah, more dodging. It's not a total loss, but you need to upgrade that for anything other than clearing out small fry."

Lyudmila sighed and floated down to rejoin Helena while Kseniya nervously flew up. "Maybe I can tie it into my power matrix," Lyudmila mumbled.

"Could work," Helena said. "That would at least help you dodge more."

Kseniya pulled out her card, then grabbed a handful of her paper constructs from her hat. "Murder or Martyr," she said weakly, before tossing the whole set into the air. The card flashed as the girls spell took hold, and the paper dolls began to form shells of quintessence in the shape of birds.

As the birds formed they started to flock and swarm before breaking off. Yuuka watched the attack idly as it spread out around her. Then the shining bird constructs began to swoop and dive, each releasing a bullet as they swarmed around the youkai.

Seeing the attack had begun Yuuka returned fire while dodging the attacks of Kseniya's constructs. Kseniya dodged the sunflowers, then started making spirals in the air to avoid Yuuka's smaller bullets.

Helena wondered if the young girl might have found Yuuka's weakness, but after a but it became clear Kseniya was just as outmatched as they had been. The quick random bullets Kseniya fired off forced Yuuka to make more active dodges then she had before, but after a while it became obvious there just weren't enough attacks to actually hit the youkai. In addition Kseniya was forced to not only dodge Yuuka's attacks on herself, but also force her constructs to dodge bullets as well to avoid being destroyed.

Eventually Kseniya's luck ran out and the girl ran into a laser. She yelped then pouted as her spell broke, the small paper animals that had survived floating back to her.

Yuuka was frowning. "Annoying." All the young witches flinched at the youkai's tone.

"Come on Yuuka, it wasn't that bad. With a few tweaks she might get into Alice level with those constructs," Marisa said.

Yuuka sniffed. "Not if she keeps fighting like that." The youkai turned her gaze back to Kseniya. "Little girl, don't send out slave type spells without being willing to lose some. You called that spell Murder or Martyr, but if you try to avoid one you'll fail at both. And the spell is ugly. Put some proper patterns in it. Danmaku should be beautiful"

Kseniya pouted. "But I spent a lot of time on these. I don't want to lose them."

"Then make ones you're willing to lose," Yuuka said. "Even Alice realizes she has to make sacrifices to fight. If you aren't willing to do that, find a new combat spell."

Sighing, Kseniya returned. Helena shrugged at the girl, while Lyudmila crossed her arms. "She's got a point. Maybe make a spell based on ugly creatures. Like locusts."

"Maybe," Kseniya said. "I don't really want to animate those though..."

"Well, a deal's a deal," Yuuka said sweetly. "Why don't you kids fly back a bit and let us adults show you what you can look forward to if you train?"

Marisa stretched then nodded. "Yeah you should fly back another two hundred feet or so. This is going to be intense." The black white witch slowly smiled. "To tell the truth Yuuka, I'd kinda been looking forward to a fight like this. Been a while since I could actually cut loose."

"Ah that's the spirit I remember," Yuuka said as she took a few experimental swings of her parasol. "Good good. We might get to the third spell card like that."

Helena backed off to the suggested distance then looked over at Lyudmila. "I don't suppose you have any far seeing spells in your bag of tricks?" At this distance they'd be barely able to see the action.

"Actually I do," Lyudmila said. "Though I'm not sure why we need to be this far back. They aren't allowed to use lethal spells."

Kseniya looked at the two with a nervous frown. "They seem really intense. And look. The sunflowers are all pointed towards them."

Helena's eyes widened as she looked down to see Kseniya was telling the truth. Something strange was going on. Stranger than any magic Helena had seen before. Lyudmila quickly finished the far seeing spell so they could get a close view of the action.

Marisa and Yuuka were both smiling as they faced off, Marisa pulling her cards from a pouch while three cards just appeared in Yuuka's hands. Marisa selected her first card, then turned to her foe. "Ready."

Yuuka nodded. "Ready."

Marisa flipped her card like it was a knife, while Yuuka's just scattered into petals. "Non Directional Laser." "Reflowering of Gensoukyo."

Helena's mouth fell open as the sky exploded into bullets.

Yuuka's spell was simple if stunning. An ever expanding flower, petals forming, growing and then slowly turning into a cloud of bullets. Each individually was probably easy to dodge, but as a whole the holes in the attack were near impossible to see.

On the other hand Marisa's attack was a riot of color. Orbs much like her Orreries Sun spell rotated around her firing lasers, but instead of the sane orbits of the heavens the orbs juked around in sweeping arcs before reversing or even going off on a different tangent. And all the while a cloud of stars spiraled out from her.

As their spells took form the two duelists began maneuvering through the air, each looking to avoid their opponents attacks. Marisa seemed to dance through the skies on her broom, weaving through bullet curtains and finding safe spots that appeared and vanished in seconds. Yuuka on the other hand looked pressed for the first time. The youkai's relaxed style couldn't handle the sweeping lasers of Marisa's spell, forcing her to run back and forth across the starfield.

The lasers petals and stars clashed in the sky for what seemed like forever, creating a light show to rival the night sky itself. If a battle like this had occurred in Helena's realm the gods would have turned from their duties to seem the battle unfold.

"Ah! The fairies," Kseniya said pointing.

Helena tore her eyes away from the battle to see that they were no longer the only spectators. Sure enough a small group of fairies were looking from the dubious cover of a lavender bush. And several other winged figures were gathering to watch it seemed. Helena couldn't blame them though. Her own eyes returned to the battle in the sky almost involuntarily.

The two duelists spun around each other twice more before their spells ended in an audible crack. The two women were both sweating, but both wore confident, if not outright arrogant grins. Marisa held up her second card and showed it to her foe. "Now for the main event. This is the card you were looking forward to, right?"

"Indeed." Yuuka closed her parasol and showed her own card. Helena blinked as the youkai revealed the exact same spell. "Show me if you're worthy of using my spell, Marisa Kirisame."

"It's my spell now, Yuuka Kazami!" Marisa pulled out a small octagonal magic device, while Yuuka pointed her parasol at the witch.

The two spoke as one. "Love Sign, Master Spark!"

Helena threw up her hand to shield her eyes as the very air seemed to explode. Two massive beams of rainbow light flew across the sky and clashed. Stars and blue lasers cascaded around the two, but those were meaningless compared to the massive devastation the two duelers were directly throwing at each other. The sky itself seemed to shake as the shockwave rumbled through them.

"Jesus," Lyudmila stated.

"A power to match Heracles himself," Helena whispered in awe. She understood now why Marisa did not fear gods.

And then there was stillness. The light faded, and the air stopped churning from the massive power being unleashed. It seemed the spells had timed out. Both women remained flying in the air, though Helena saw a bit of strain in their smiles now.

Yuuka twirled her parasol absently. "Ufufufu~. It looks like you matched my power. You finally have the right to call it a Master Spark."

"Oh? Not gonna claim you were holding back?" Marisa replied. "I suppose I'm flattered. I guess that means we need to try our third spells then."

"I'd never hold back when it comes to my spark," Yuuka said as she pulled out her third card. "But you of all people should know that's not my strongest spell." Helena could only shake her head. They had stronger spells?

Marisa flipped her magical device into the air then caught it. "I suppose that's true. Well then. Shall we finish this?"

"Yes." Yuuka raised her parasol, then vanished. Seconds later two Yuukas appeared in the sky, both lowering their parasols. "Double Spark."

Marisa lowered her hat, then grabbed on to her broom and pointed her device behind her. "Blazing Star."

Again Helena was forced to raise her arm to protect her eyes. Yuuka's dual sparks were each less impressive than the full blast had been, but together they were incredible. Marisa on the other hand still had her full power, but this time the witch blasted forward like a comet through the sky, slamming into the other two beams and trying to break through.

The sound of the clash hit them like a slap, but seconds later it faded away. The two spells vanished, allowing them to see Marisa plow right between the two Yuukas, then tumble off her broom.

Kseniya yelped in shock, and Helena started moving forward, but the Yuukas simply vanished. A second later one Yuuka appeared next to the falling witch, catching both Marisa and her broom. It seemed the fight was over.

Helena and her friends slowly flew over. This whole fight was... something different. She'd never dreamed that people could wield this much raw power. Much less a witch with human origins.

Marisa was pulling herself back onto her broom when they arrived. The elder witch looked pale and was rubbing her shoulder, but seemed to otherwise be fine. "Why the heck do you shoot bullets inside your lasers Yuuka?"

"To hit people like you," Yuuka replied sweetly. "And are you sure you should be flying around so soon? You exhausted a lot of magic there, and you broke your own personal shields smashing into my spell."

"I shouldn't, but I'm too proud to have someone carry me to the ground," Marisa said as she started floating down towards the tea table. As Helena followed along Marisa turned towards them. "So! How'd you like watching two masters using far more power than we really should?"

Helena opened her mouth to answer, then shut it. She had no idea what to even say.

"Ha! Finally impressed you. Too bad I had to do it by losing," Marisa chuckled.

"They don't appreciate your usual antics?" Yuuka opened her parasol. "A pity. I found them amusing, when you weren't interrupting my sleep of course."

As Marisa slid into one of the chairs Lyudmila finally managed to say, "Was that even legal?"

"Not technically," Marisa said. "But you can't get fussy with the rules."

"No," Yuuka said. "But it's Marisa so we ignore it." The youkai sat down as well. "Besides, I wanted to see her true strength. You have to take some risks for that."

"Will you be okay?" Kseniya asked.

Marisa snorted. "This isn't even a fracture. I'll be fine in an hour, and back to normal in two." The elder woman rubbed her shoulder. "Though you gals will have free time until then."

Helena finally found her tongue. "How'd you get so powerful?"

"Live over a thousand years and you learn things," Yuuka replied sweetly.

"If you want to shave off about nine hundred and ninety years from that plan I suggest obsessively striving for power and getting a minor magical artifact from a friend," Marisa said. "It helped that I learned how to fight with no innate magic first, but you kids aren't that much stronger than I was. If you've got the drive you can do it."

Helena and her friends just looked at each other and shook their heads. Maybe this all would make sense later. Right now the shock of seeing two people throwing attacks that should have been in sagas was too fresh. And even more surprising was that the only people who'd shown up to watch were fairies!

"Sheesh you kids are making way too big a deal of this," Marisa said as she rested her head on the table. "Yeah we were tossing out a lot of power, but the light show wasn't an indicator of that. My Spark's looked near the same since I was fifteen. Lots of lights and noise are wasted energy. If you get all spooked by that someone'll have you running scared just with a big firecracker.

Helena blushed a little at the rebuke. "Okay, fine the light I'll grant you, but that shockwave was pretty damn big too."

Marisa shrugged. "Yeah yeah. Well I'm sure your parents could toss out something similar if they wanted to. At least close to our power. Your grandma for sure, Helena. She looks dangerous. Probably be some kinda blood boily thing instead of a boom but it'd kill you just as dead."

Yuuka sniffed. "I doubt it would be that close to my power. But maybe it would last ten seconds or so."

Strangely it was Yuuka's bragging that finally sealed Marisa's statement. If someone as powerful as Yuuka felt a need to show off, then obviously her power wasn't completely dominant. And that made sense. After all the gods had to be keeping Yuuka and the other demons from running too wild. Which meant the Japanese gods had to be stronger. And there was no way her gods were weaker than the gods here. She looked over to Lyudmila who nodded. She wanted that kind of power, but getting starstruck was foolish.

Her balance recovered Helena looked over at Marisa. "So what's there to do here?"

"Go out and smell the roses. Or tulips. Whatever's blooming," Marisa said.

"Just don't pick any," Yuuka added.

Helena sighed. But Lyudmila smiled. "Sure thing!" Helena raised an eyebrow at that. It seemed her friend had a plan, but what could they possibly do here?

* * *

Helena slowly shook her head. Obviously the flowers here were poisonous. Or maybe Lyudmila had been replaced by a shapeshifter. There was no way she'd heard her friend right. "You want to spend out dubious free time hunting down fairies? Are you okay?"

"Yes I am," Lyudmila replied. "Think about what we learned from Patchouli, Helena. Fairies here are the same as in my realm, except without royalty."

Helena sighed. "Yeah. So?"

"So that doesn't make any sense," Lyudmila gestured around. "It's not like this place is hard to find. Sure there's a barrier and everything but anyone with decent magic can wander in. Which means if there were no local nobles some fairy 'duke' or whatnot would barge in."

"That is true," Kseniya mused. "The fairy court kinda goes everywhere."

"They aren't in my realm," Helena pointed out. "In fact they tend not to appear in any realm that has very strong nature spirits already. I have no idea how they spread all the way to Japan. Especially given they seem to worship nature spirits here."

Lyudmila nodded quickly. "That's right! Which means something is weird here. And I think I know what it is! Remember that fairy that kicked me?"

"Yep!" Kseniya replied happily. Helena kept her expression carefully neutral. It wouldn't do to have Lyudmila know how funny the scene had been.

Lyudmila frowned at her sister but pressed on. "Think on this. How did that fairy know what I was doing?"

"She was just paranoid?" Helena ventured.

"Maybe. Or maybe she's smarter than she looks," Lyudmila said. "Anyway I want to find her."

Helena rolled her eyes. "Shall we look for snipe as well, or do you have a scrying spell that will work on a fey creature? Because trying to find a single fairy that may or may not be here is a waste of time."

"Er... well maybe if we start a fight?" Lyudmila said hesitantly.

"I can do it!" Kseniya said hopping up and down. "I've got a great spell for it!"

"What? Mom and Dad haven't taught us any remote scrying spells," Lyudmila snapped. "We can only look remotely at prepared objects."

Kseniya smiled as she held up her paper crafted animals. "And I prepared all of these!"

Helena blinked then nodded. "That should actually work! Well it will work if you set it up as a searching spell not a scrying spell. Viewing several places at once is pretty difficult, and if you move them as one you'll never finish searching."

"Um, how did you do that again?" Kseniya asked as she started the paper animals flying around her.

Lyudmila sighed. "Just imprint it with a trigger to notify you when it sees a fairy like the one we want to find." She tapped one of the origami animals while casting the spell. "Like that."

"Oh. Right!" Kseniya's fingers danced as she implanted each one of the seekers with the spell then flung them outward. The tiny servants scattered to the winds, leaving Kseniya standing on the hill with her eyes closed, slowly chewing on her lip. Helena and Lyudmila waited there for a few long minutes before Kseniya's eyes shot open. "Found her!"

"Really?" Helena was surprised. They weren't that close to the lake. Still it was an opportunity, and slightly more interesting than just flower hunting. "Lets go then."

"Follow me!" Kseniya cried before hopping into the sky and flying towards a small clump of trees. Helena and Lyudmila followed quickly, staying close to the ground to avoid drawing too much attention.

Kseniya moved past a few of the out laying trees before pointing at a bush. "There!"

The accused plant yelped, then the green haired fairy from before jumped out. The small girlish figure looked worried, but also defiant. "You witches again! I won't let you near Cirno!"

Lyudmila held up her hands. "Hey! I wanted to talk to you this time."

"I'm not falling for your tricks either! Take this!" The fairy began charging up some attack, so Helena did the reasonable thing and whispered a quick spell to shoot the green haired girl in the face with a laser. The fairy yelped, fell over, then teleported away as Lyudmila's bullets fired over it.

"Drat," Helena muttered.

Lyudmila sighed. "Well that didn't go well. Maybe we should try a more diplomatic approach. Whenever we manage to find her next."

"Oh, I slipped one of my paper dolls onto her ribbon so I know exactly where she is," Kseniya said.

Helena blinked at the young girl's cunning while Lyudmila clapped in excitement. "Nice one sis! Come on. Lets find her before she teleports further!"

"Right!" Kseniya hopped into the air and began flying to where the lavender bushes were growing. Helena and Lyudmila followed along.

"So how are we going to do this diplomatically?" Helena asked.

Lyudmila thought for a moment. "Kseniya, just get us close to her. Don't point her out. Let her think she's hidden."

"Okay," Kseniya said. Helena nodded to herself. That would help make them seem less threatening.

They followed Kseniya to one of the thicker parts of the patch, then landed, making a show of searching for the fairy girl. As Lyudmila pushed her way through the lavender she called out. "Look, I'm not trying to get a pact or anything. I just want to talk."

The fairy's voice echoed around them. "Talk about what?" A neat trick Helena thought.

"Why are you so insistent I don't make a pact with that other fairy?" Lyudmila asked. "It should be beneficial to both of us. What do you know that I don't? Is it because there are no fairy nobles here to enforce the pact?"

There was a long pause. "How do you know there are no nobles?"

The three witches looked at each other. Helena shrugged, leaving Lyudmila to keep the conversation. "Patchouli told us," Lyudmila said cautiously.

"Alright. We'll talk." There was a rustling as the green haired fairy carefully flew out from behind another lilac bush. "You see-"

"Hey!"

Everyone jumped in shock as a blue streak flew into the clearing. Flowers and branches froze with a crack as the blue haired fairy from before interposed herself between the other fairy and Helena's group. "What are you guys doing to Daiyousei?!"

"Ah," Kseniya raised her hand. "We were just playing hide and seek and we won!"

Cirno's angry expression disappeared. "Oh! Well why didn't you tell me? I'm the best at hide and seek! I want to play too!"

Daiyousei sighed, then smiled at Cirno. "Sure. Since I got caught we'll look for you." The green haired fairy closed her eyes and began to count. "One. Two..."

Crino grinned then winked at the witches before flying silently off to the south. The trio stood there silently as Daiyousei counted for a bit, then Helena shook her head. "Not the most cunning."

"She's still young," Daiyousei said, opening her eyes.

"So what did you want to tell us without her hearing," Lyudmila asked.

Daiyousei's eyes narrowed at that. "You on the other hand are very cunning." The green haired fairy sighed. "But I suppose since you aren't from around here I can tell you. So long as you promise not to tell anyone who lives in Gensokyo about this."

Helena raised an eyebrow, but quickly nodded. She was really curious now. "Sure. I promise," Kseniya chirped. Lyudmila hesitated a little more before saying "I swear."

Daiyousei hesitated and looked around again before taking a deep breath. "The reason there is was no fairy nobility in Gensouyko is because the youkai sage kept them out. Gensoukyo is OUR land." The little fairy's eyes grew hard. "We will accept people from other realms, but not rulers from other realms. The west has their own hideaways to mess up."

"But then how did fairies get here?" Helena asked. "The gods kicked most of the non Greek chimera out my realm, and that's kept the lesser fairies from forming at all."

"Japan is different," Daiyousei said. "We understand how a river can have a god, and a spirit and a fairy. And all of them can be different people."

Lyudmila nodded. "But why then are there no fairy nobles now?"

Daiyousei sighed and relaxed a bit. "The reason there is no fairy nobility now is because I don't want one."

"Eh?" Helena stared at the small woman. "Why do you get to choose?"

"Oh! I know!" Kseniya pointed. "You must be the fairy princess!" Daiyousei flinched.

Lyudmila shook her head. "No offense, but you seem kind of weak for a princess."

Daiyousei shook her head. "I'm not a princess. I'm the fairy of fairies. There is no fairy royalty in Gensoukyo!" She crossed her arms. "I'm weak because the fairies here are weak. With some exceptions."

Lyudmila thought for a moment. "But you could become the fairy queen. If you wanted to." Lyudmila looked over at the small girl. "And it would have to be you. If it was just any old fairy who declared themselves to be in charge, then one would have become a queen or princess playing dressup would have started a court by accident."

"That's... mostly right," Daiyousei admitted. She pointed accusingly at Lyudmila. "But if someone like you made a connection to Cirno and one of your fairy 'nobles' followed it back they could make Cirno a knight or something and mess everything up!"

"But why don't you want Cirno to be a knight?" Kseniya asked. "And why don't you want to be a princess? I mean, being queen is probably boring and stuff, but being a princess sounds cool."

Helena nodded. "Yeah. Why keep the fairies here weak? They're universally the butt of jokes. Why not start up a court and prove everyone wrong?"

"Because then we would die," the little fairy said quietly.

"Huh?" The three witches looked at each other. "How?" Kseniya asked.

Daiyousei closed her eyes. "Fairies are spirits of nature. To kill Cirno one would have to destroy all the ice on the Misty Lake. To harm Sunny Milk you would have to prevent the sun from shining through the trees of Gensoukyo. To get rid of Lilly White you'd have to end Spring itself. The so called lesser fae of your realm are like that too."

Daiyousei looked at the three witches in turn. "But when a fairy becomes a 'noble' they lose that. Nobility is a human concept, and with that concept comes the idea of succession and mortality. Cirno the ice fairy will respawn every time she's killed, but if Cirno, Fairy Knight of the Misty Lake died that would be it." Daiyousei shook her head. "She would be gone and another Fairy Knight of the Misty Lake would take her place."

"I don't want fairies to have power," Daiyousei said softly. "We have immortality. That's good enough. I want to play games with my friends forever. I don't need to beat people up or show off how awesome fairies are." She smiled a bit. "Besides. Cirno is strong enough."

Helena shook her head slowly. "Immortality or power, huh? I wonder what I'd pick."

"I still think it would be fun to be a princess," Kseniya mused. "But it'd be mean to everyone else..."

Lyudmila sighed deeply. "Well I suppose that explains everything. No pacts for us with fairies."

Kseniya nodded. "We promise we won't mess things up."

"Well..." The little fairy thought for a moment. "I can give you something in return." Daiyousei smiled. "After all no child of Danu wouldn't know how to craft a geas."

Lyudmila perked up. "What would the terms be?"

"Swear to never bring death to an immortal fairy," Daiyousei said.

Helena frowned. "And...?"

"It's a geas Helena," Lyudmila muttered.

Helena looked at her friend. "Yeah. A magical binding that punishes you if you break it. What's good about that?"

"Bah, that Gygaxian bullshit isn't the half of it," Lyudmila retorted. "A geas isn't just a binding. It's a vow, like the vows of silence monks take. Except instead of gaining spiritual karma or some nonsense you get power. If we swear to this we'll get stronger, though not much stronger admittedly."

"And I don't want to hurt fairies anyway," Kseniya said before turning to Daiyousei. "I Kseniya Doroshenko swear on my magic never to bring death to an immortal fairy." As the young witch's declaration finished Helena could feel the magic in the area shiver slightly. It was small, but still noticeable.

Lyudmila stepped forward. "I Lyudmila Doroshenko do swear by the power within me to never bring death to an immortal fairy."

"Well, when in Rome." Helena took a deep breath and stepped forward. "I Helena Aoede swear on my blood to never bring death to an immortal fairy." She felt magic course through her as her tongue fell still, but it was like a spring breeze. There and then gone again.

"Thank you," Daiyousei said. "I'm glad you all agreed to this."

Lyudmila shrugged. "As Kseniya said I don't really want to kill fairies, so it seemed a fair bargain. Especially since you trusted us to tell us the whole truth." Lyudmila looked at Helena and smirked. "Though I'm surprised you accepted so easily, Helena. I figured you'd be avoiding binding oaths just in case."

Helena sniffed. "Please. If I couldn't think of a way to solve any problem I came across without violating an oath as simple as this I'd disgrace my city. I'm a Theban, not some muscle headed Spartan."

Daiyousei giggled. "Well I can't complain. And as extra thanks, I'll grant you something else." The little fairy raised her hand, and a sparkling dust washed over them. "I mark you as fairy friends. It won't protect you, or grant you anything, but many of my kind will consider it a point in your favor."

Lyudmila bowed. "Thank you." Helena and Kseniya followed suit.

The four stood uneasily a bit before Helena sighed. "Well, I guess we should be going. After all we've got a secret to keep, and if Marisa or Yuuka finds us just standing around chatting they're going to be curious."

Kseniya pouted. "But I wanted to play hide and seek!"

"Really?" Helena asked. "The way that Cirno girl was flying she was probably heading all the way back to the lake. She seems like the type to cheat."

"That's Cirno," Daiyousei sighed.

Kseniya smiled. "That's okay! I hid one of my paper birds in her bow. I can track her anywhere."

"Eh!" The green haired fairy patted at her ribbon and pulled out a small paper butterfly with a look of surprised. "That's how you found me? You cheated!"

"We weren't actually playing hide and seek you know," Lyudmila pointed out.

"It's still cheating!" Daiyousei said.

Helena chuckled. "Whatever you say, princess."

"Don't call me that," the little fairy yelled, stomping her foot.

"As you command," Lyudmila replied with a smirk.

"So are we gonna do this?" Kseniya asked.

Helena nodded. Hide and seek was childish, but trying to out trick a cheating fairy seemed like an interesting time. "Sure. Let's tell Marisa we might wander a bit first though."

"Right!" Helena and her friends took to the skies again, an exasperated fairy trailing behind.


	7. Chapter 7

Helena sat at the small table working on tweaking her spellcard. While she agreed with Marisa that it could work better with just more power, she wasn't hoping to suddenly gain world shattering magics overnight. Today had been a fluke, and even then she couldn't really say how much the fairy's geas had improved her power. She had to think of a better trick, so her skills would be strong while she was still weak. After all it's not like skills went away when you became stronger.

Lyudmila came out of the kitchen carrying one of the flower lamps. "These things are really nice. We should bring some home with us."

Helena nodded as she looked out the window. Night had finally fallen, making the magic lights a real lifesaver. They'd played around for a few hours before Marisa took them back to the cottage to eat then left to let them study on their own. "They give better light than the lanterns for sure. I wonder if its a real flower? I'd like to see it alive if it is."

"Maybe it's a magic plant? Like the giant beanstalk," Kseniya said as she flipped through her manga.

"Possibly," Lyudmila turned the lamp off with a cantrip and set it down. "Someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look organic though."

Helena's thoughts were interrupted by a rapping on the door. "Hm?" She blinked and looked at the offending portal. "That's a visitor?"

"Hey. I came to take you girls stargazing. Come on out," Marisa's voice called from outside.

"Coming!" Kseniya hopped up and headed for the door. Helena sighed and stood up. It seemed their quiet evening of studying was no more.

Lyudmila hopped up as well. "Kseniya, wait!" she hissed.

"Huh?" Kseniya turned as she reached for the door.

A pale hand caught Kseniya's wrist just as the young girl reached the doorknob. Shizuka appeared next to Kseniya, shaking her head. Helena's heart started beating quickly as she saw fear in the zashiki warashi's eyes.

Lyudmila stepped forward to face the door. "Why don't you come in, Marisa?" Lyudmila's eyes narrowed. "Like you always do."

Helena started. Lyudmila was right. Marisa never knocked. She just barged in. There was a heavy silence as Kseniya slowly edged away from the door.

"Come on now. Don't leave me waiting out here. If we wait too long be brightest stars will have set," the voice called out.

Lyudmila shook her head slowly. "Why don't you come in? Is it because you can't get past the wards?"

A heavy slam against the door made all the girls jump. Shizuka slammed the deadbolt shut before pulling Kseniya away as the door shuddered again. A white glow sprang over the doorway as glittering divine wards sprang into existence. The creature outside hissed then called out in Marisa's voice, "What baaad little girls. Not coming out when their master calls them. Hiding behind magic wards. Bad girls should be PUNISHED!" Wood splintered and warped as another massive blow hit the door.

The wards won't hold, Helena muttered grimly. She pulled out her spellcard, then angrily flung it aside. There wasn't enough power there to stop a chimera. What could she do?!

Lyudmila on the other hand sprung into action. The slavic witch began writing equations down on the ground into tight circles. Within seconds the circles had started to glow and a line of energy flew off to the glowing wards on the doorframe. "Not enough. Kseniya help me! I need more power." Kseniya nodded and ran to the circle, causing its glow to brighten.

The door shuddered again and the deadbolt snapped free. "NAuGhTy gIrLS. comING TO pLaCES YOU areN't waNTEd. StayINg wiTH GirLS tHat mURDeR YoUkai! I'lL Have TO RIP YOUR ENTRAILS OUT AND EAT THEM!" Metal screeched as a hinge gave way. Marisa's golden eyes peered through the new crack in the doorway, an inhuman smile on her twisted face. "noWhErE to rUn..." The monster pushed her hand through the crack, then cried out and recoiled as she touched the wards.

Helena found she was breathing heavily. Her mind was churning, wandering, but she seemed locked in place. She was afraid, confused, lost...

She was angry.

With a quiet detachment she saw the door splinter yet again, and Lyudmila's runes wavered with the hit. The wards were probably designed more to keep people out for a time. A dedicated attacker willing to hurt themselves would probably break through.

Still that gave Helena the time she would need.

She saw Shizuka trying to drag a bookshelf over as a barricade and she snapped her fingers to get the spirit's attention. "Bring a bucket of water to the cauldron. Two if you can." The spirit seemed surprised by her request, but nodded and ran to where the emergency water bucket for the main room was sitting. Helena on the other hand reached into her hat and grabbed her pen and a writing plaque.

Walking into the kitchen she nodded happily to find that the cauldron was already a quarter full. The more water the better. As Shizuka ran in and began pouring water in Helena placed the plaque on a counter and wrote out her request to the gods.

It was ancient custom in her home for people casting curses to write their dark prayers on plaques and cast them into water. If the plaque sank the gods accepted your curse. If it floated the gods rejected the curse and turned it back upon you. Most Greeks, being practical people, used lead for their curse plaques.

Helena's family used cork.

As she carefully wrote out her plea to Hecate she let all her venom and hate fill the words. How dare this beast steal her mentor's face and try to scare them? To threaten to kill and torture them? How dare it disrupt her sanctuary and peace? How dare it challenge her power?

She would show the creature what it meant to challenge an Aoede!

The ink seemed to pulse as she finished her curse. She carefully held it over the cauldron, then let it fall.

The plaque hit the water and sank like a stone.

Helena shivered as power exploded from the cauldron. A roiling seething darkness, greasy and slick, boiled out of the pot and flowed to her left hand. Shizuka whimpered then backed out of the kitchen as the cloud writhed, then coiled around Helena's arm like a snake. Helena nodded to herself. Yes a snake. That would do nicely. The bullet shape began to form in her mind as she strode back to the main room.

The door was a mass of dents now, splinters pointing everywhere. Kseniya stood gritting her teeth and pouring power into Lyudmila's sigil, while the older mage rapidly rebuilt the equations that failed. "Helena, what were you- what the hell is that?!" Helena ignored her friend and strode to the door as the beast wearing Marisa's form struck it again.

Golden eyes gleamed through the cracks. "Don't you know it's dangerous at night little girl?"

"Yes," Helena said coldly. She reached out and flung the shattered door open causing the shining wards to shatter. "There are witches about." She raised her left arm and focused her curse into a bullet.

The oily mist turned into a wavy black line that streaked through the air like a striking snake. The creature with Marisa's face looked shocked, then screeched in agony as the cursed missile hit.

As the curse left her Helena felt drained. She could only slump against the wall as the beast that had Marisa's form stumbled away, howling and thrashing. Its body twisted and shifted at random, a bushy ringed tail appearing and vanishing, its hands sometimes turning into claws that ripped it's own flesh, and its ears turning into small tuffs.

The beast managed to make it fifty feet before collapsing to the ground and convulsing. Helena began to worry again as it started to stand, but then a bright star streaked from above and slammed it back to the ground.

Seconds later a golden haired figure in a nightgown swooped down on her broom and flew over to the door. "Sorry I'm late," Marisa said as she gasped for breath.

"Where were you?" Kseniya asked with a sniffle.

Marisa lowered her hat. "Sleeping. Sorry." The magician shook her head then forced a smile. "You kids did good though." Her smile faded. "Though what was that magic right before I got here?"

"Seriously," Lyudmila's voice was still trembling. "What was that Helena?"

Helena pulled herself to her feet. "You said if someone wasn't playing by the rules to hit them with the strongest curse I had. That's my strongest curse."

"What was the curse?" Marisa asked.

Helena blinked then was hit by a wave of embarrassment. "Uh, I gave it an advanced case of leprosy."

Lyudmila's mouth dropped open. "Jesus Christ, Helena!" Kseniya and Shizuka seemed to flinch.

"Right." Marisa shook her head. "If there's a next time, use your second most powerful curse." After a moment of thought she turned around and sighed. "Hina's going to give me hell for this," the woman muttered. She began walking forward. "You kids head back inside. I'll be along in a second."

"Huh?" Kseniya rushed to the doorframe. "Where are you going?"

Marisa pulled out her magic reactor. "I'm going to finish matters."

"Wait!" Helena found herself stepping forward. As everyone turned towards her she froze. Why did she do that?

Marisa paused, then lowered her hat again before nodding. "You want to finish it." It was a statement not a question.

Helena hesitated, then nodded. "I started it. I'll end it."

Marisa ran her hands through her disheveled hair, then gently held out the magic artifact. "Let's go then." The artifact felt warm as Helena carefully picked it up. She could sense the fire within the small octagonal box, waiting to be called.

Marisa began walking, and Helena followed. The sound of footsteps behind her told her that her friends were coming as well. Helena wasn't sure how she felt about that. But she kept moving forward.

The creature was starting to stir again. It had reverted to its true form, possibly to weaken Helena's curse, and while it was bloody and covered with blisters, Helena recognized it as a tanuki. Its brown eyes opened and rolled to glare at Helena, before turning to Marisa. " _hate you. hate you. murderer. vengeance. my son-_ "

"Your son ate an orphan," Marisa replied icily. "If you want to hate someone, hate yourself for raising him wrong." The elder witch's hand fell on Helena's shoulder and Helena felt power flowing into her. "And you never should have gotten other people involved."

Helena raised the artifact and called upon the flames within. "Hades take you."

The flames poured out of the metal box as a white hot wave. It struck the tanuki woman in the head, killing her instantly. The fire faded, and Helena stumbled again, her strength fading. Marisa gently helped Helena back up, then carefully took back the device. "Let's go inside. Okay?"

Helena nodded, then remembering the ritual pulled out two coins from her purse and threw them next to the corpse. "The ferryman's toll," she said when Marisa looked at her strangely.

"Hm." Marisa hummed and nodded before slowly turning Helena around. Helena winced as she saw Lyudmila and Kseniya standing there wide eyed. Lyudmila was at least looking at her face, but Kseniya was staring at the body. Helena would have been even more worried about the young girl's reaction if Shizuka hadn't been holding Kseniya's hand tightly.

"Are... you okay Helena?" Lyudmila asked.

Helena nodded weakly. "Just tired. For some reason."

Marisa guided her slowly forward. "You've been punching above your weight class today. You're gonna be sore all tomorrow." The elder witch turned to the others. "Anyway I'll be staying over tonight."

"Will you be fixing the door?" Kseniya asked quietly.

Marisa managed to fake a grin. "Not until tomorrow. At least not the big stuff. So I'll wait in the main room while you sleep. After all I've already got in the sleep I need. Marisa looked at Shizuka. "And you did good. You should take a rest as well." The zashiki warashi blushed a little and squeezed Kseniya's hand again.

The five trudged back up the lawn to the doorway, Marisa helping Helena over the rough ground. The main room was bright and inviting now that the threat was removed, though the hanging door stabbed into scene like a splinter. Marisa helped Helena to a side couch before turning towards the offending portal. "I should do something about the hinges at least. Give me a sec."

Lyudmila and Kseniya stood watching Helena anxiously as she took a few deep breaths. Marisa was right. She was starting to ache a bit, especially her left hand. She stretched weakly, then tried to smile for her friends. "Sorry Lyudmila. I should have helped your spell instead of running around like an idiot."

Lyudmila shook her head. "Kseniya was putting in more power then it could handle by herself. I wish I could have done more to improve the spell."

"I shouldn't have gone to the door," Kseniya muttered. "I almost let it in."

"But you didn't," Lyudmila said. "Shizuka stopped you."

The pale spirit shook her head at the praise. "Just my job."

Marisa wandered back. "Doesn't mean it wasn't valuable." Now that things had calmed down Helena noticed how disheveled the woman was. Marisa had a nightgown her hat, her shoes, and her broom, and that was it. Even the woman's braid was missing. Marisa saw Helena's scrutiny and waved it off. "I'll be fine. I've had worse all nighters." The black white witch turned to her friends. "You three on the other hand should do your best to sleep. I'll need you all awake and thinking clearer tomorrow when Helena and I are dead tired."

Lyudmila hesitated and looked at Helena. "You sure you're gonna be fine?"

"Yeah," Helena responded. "You should be looking after your sister anyway right? And she needs sleep."

"I'm not a baby," Kseniya pouted. "I can stay up too!"

"But you shouldn't," Shizuka whispered.

Kseniya looked annoyed, then sighed. "Fine."

"Right. Now before you all head off..." Marisa pulled a small crude doll out of her hat, then walked into the kitchen. A moment later she came out shaking her head. "Well that'll hold for a week at least." She turned the others. "Now you three try to sleep. That includes you little zashiki warashi. This house has more wards than mine now, and I'll be here to blast anything personally so there's nothing to worry about."

Kseniya looked rebellious, but shook her head and said "Good night." Lyudmila and Shizuka seemed conflicted, but as Kseniya turned away they gave their goodnights and followed the younger girl, Lyudmila looking over her shoulder once before leaving.

The room felt emptier without them. The bright lights of the lamps illuminated even the darkest corners, making the open spaces seem larger than they did in the day. Helena shook her head and focused more on herself. The general ache and weakness were muted now, but her arm still felt like she'd carried a water jar for a mile. She started massaging the muscles, just to have something to focus on other than pain. Marisa noticed the gesture and reached out. "Mind if I take a look?"

"Go ahead," Helena said.

Marisa lightly lifted her arm and tapped it gently a few times before shaking her head. "I'm surprised kid. Normally after throwing around a curse like that you'd be bleeding. Must be a pretty good spell."

"It's part spell, part prayer," Helena admitted, returning to lightly massaging the arm.

Nodding, Marisa flopped onto the couch next to her. "That'd explain it." The short mage looked over at her. "So, how are you feeling?"

Helena looked at the floor. How did she feel? What was there past the ache and the fatigue? "I... I don't know. I did the right thing didn't I?"

Marisa looked out over the room, giving her space. "First time you killed someone isn't it?"

"I've killed goats and chickens before," Helena explained. "But never something intelligent. Never anything that could talk."

"It's different," Marisa agreed. "Though maybe slaughtering animals takes the sting out a little." Marisa shrugged lightly. "Guess I'll never know."

Helena looked over at Marisa. "How was it for you?"

"It was a bad couple of days." Marisa said quietly. She looked over at Helena. "I was ten you see, and a city girl through and through for all Alice calls me a country bumpkin." The gold haired witch closed her eyes and leaned back. "I still don't know if Mima set it up or not. But it was one of her first lessons as a witch." She opened her eyes and looked at Helena again. "If you're going to live forever, at some point it's gonna be your life or someone else's."

"My life or someone else's, huh?" Helena looked at the floor again. "... It's funny. I spent all that time talking about learning combat magic with Koakuma."

"And you never really thought about what that meant," Marisa said quietly. "Most people really don't."

Helena shook her head. Her eyes began to itch so she rubbed them. "Thank you. For letting me..."

"I'm your teacher after all," Marisa said. "Even if you don't think much of me." Marisa reached up and put her hand on Helena's shoulder.

With that something inside Helena seemed to crumble away. Her eyes began to run, and she began sniffling like a child. "I... I... this is stupid." She wiped her eyes. "Why am I crying now?" Hiccuping she shook her head to catch her breath. "I don't even feel bad."

"It's fine. It's fine." Marisa said as the woman reached up to stroke her hair. "You threw your emotions into that curse. You tore all the fear and anger out and put into a spell. Now it's trickling back. It'll pass."

Helena sniffed again and let Marisa slowly lay her head down on the woman's lap. She hated not being in control. She hated having to rely on her crazy 'councilor.' But she was glad someone was there. Someone she didn't have to keep a brave face on for.

"You should get some sleep if you can manage it," Marisa whispered. "It won't help much probably, but it's better than staying awake."

"Okay," Helena muttered weakly. Her arm still hurt, and her stomach churned with the returning emotions, but she did her best to try to relax. Marisa just sat there, letting Helena shift and flop about to get more comfortable.

After a what seemed like eternity, Helena managed to fall into a restless hazy sleep.

* * *

Groggily Helena came to her senses. Morning birdsong was coming through the windows, along with enough light to make the lamps seem dimmer. There was an occasional rustle of turning pages from next to her as well. Marisa must have been reading all night.

Helena groaned as the rest of her body checked in. Her arm was still sore, though now it was because she slept on it oddly. She rubbed her eyes and tried to gather her wits more.

"You awake?" Marisa asked softly.

"No," Helena grumbled. She carefully pushed herself off Marisa's lap and shook her head before looking around the room. In the light of day it seemed more normal sized. Glancing over at Marisa she noticed the older witch's eyes were bloodshot and droopy. At least the woman had managed to get her hair fixed over the night.

Marisa closed the book at her side and stretched. "How are you feeling?" Helena realized that the woman had to be pretty stiff from being stuck as her pillow all night.

"Sore and tired," Helena replied. "But not as much as last night."

"Good," Marisa said. "If you want to sleep you can. Camp events are canceled today. Though we'll be getting some guests, rather soon." Helena started as there was a knock on the splintered door. "Come in Koakuma."

Koakuma opened the door and walked in, leaving Helena to wonder how Marisa knew where someone else's familiar was. "Hello, Marisa. And good morning Helena. I'm afraid Patchouli's busy trying to keep Alice from bringing her Goliath doll, but they should be along shortly."

"Goliath doll?" Marisa looked stunned for a moment. "The hell does she want to bring that thing for?"

"Show of force," Koakuma replied sweetly. "I expect it to be another thirty minutes." Koakuma opened the small bag she was carrying and pulled out a large pot. "Shall I make coffee?"

"Probably," Marisa sighed. "Just avoid the cauldron. It's cursed. Even after I threw in a nagashi-bina doll."

Koakuma nodded. "Ah, so that's what I sensed flying in. Impressive work Helena! It seems I didn't need to do any devilish corruption after all."

Helena glowered at the little devil. "Thanks."

As Koakuma wandered into the kitchen, Helena slowly stood and worked the kinks out of her legs. After a bit of stretching she headed over to her notes, still open from last night, and closed them. She wasn't in any condition to be altering spells.

A quiet voice said, "Good morning." Helena looked up to see Shizuka standing at the entry hall.

"Morning," she replied. The spirit smiled weakly, then disappeared when Koakuma walked back into the room carrying a platter with mugs on it. Helena wondered if incredible shyness was just a racial trait for zashiki warashi.

"I made coffee," Koakuma said, as she set down the platter. The devil picked up a cup and handed it to Helena. "So you'll be somewhat awake."

Helena sniffed the steaming brown liquid and grimaced. "I suppose the Turkish swill has some use," she muttered. She walked over to the table and poured in as much milk as she could before sipping it. As expected it tasted terrible.

Marisa threw several cubes of sugar into hers before quaffing the mixture. "Do the Turks even exist in your realm?" she asked.

"No," Helena replied. "But the Persians are innocent where coffee is concerned."

"Coffee's actually fairly recent, Marisa," Koakuma said. "I was actually created before it existed as a drink."

Marisa blinked at that statement before shaking her head. "Weird."

There were some footsteps from the hallway. Helena looked over as Kseniya dragged her sister into the room. Kseniya looked at the coffee and wrinkled her nose in disgust, but Lyudmila yawned and grabbed one of the coffee mugs, drinking the bitter brew straight. "Morning," she muttered, before turning to Helena. "You sleep well?"

"No," Helena replied. "Though you don't seem to have done much better."

Her friend shook her head ruefully. "Guess not."

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to sleep while Patchouli and Alice lecture me," Marisa said. "They should be along shortly after Patchy finishes talking Alice out of bringing that siege doll of hers."

"Siege doll?" Kseniya asked with wide eyes. "Aw, I wanted to see something like that!"

Koakuma's wings and tail swished back happily. "Oh Marisa, I don't think you understand. Miss Patchouli's going to lose. So you'll get your wish Kseinya~"

Marisa stared at Koakuma. "Come on now! You can't be serious. There's no way Alice can justify that."

"How much do you want to bet?" Koakuma asked with a spark in her eye.

Marisa just glowered at the devil. Apparently even Marisa wasn't arrogant enough to take that deal. After a pause Marisa sighed and stood. "Well might as well get started on breakfast then. Koakuma could you help me toss that cauldron?"

"Wait, you're throwing it away?" Helena asked. "It can't be that bad."

Lyudmila gave her a funny look. "You can't feel it Helena? I put up a warding rune just to sleep."

"It kinda smells," Kseniya complained.

Helena folded her arms. It couldn't be that bad! They had to just be messing with her.

Marisa raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "It is pretty obvious. Must be because it's part divine or something. Maybe Patchy will figure it out." The elder magician stood and stretched. "So we're gonna toss it so we don't get any curses in our eggs."

Helena sighed and flopped on the table as Koakuma and Marisa headed into the kitchen and brought out the cauldron on a floating disk. After they dumped the cauldron outside Marisa returned to sit at the table, while Koakuma retreated into the kitchen again. Soon the sound of frying eggs and bacon started coming into the room. Helena's stomach seemed only mildly interested in food, but it still made her perk up a bit.

A large thump from outside caused her to turn. Then she stared. Outside the widow was a massive doll, wearing a blue dress and holding two giant swords. It was... ridiculous. That was the only term Helena could think of. "I guess Alice is here," she remarked.

Kseniya hopped up, then hesitated. Lyudmila frowned at that before standing up herself and walking to to open the door. Patchouli and Alice were both standing there, looking mildly embarrassed. "Welcome," Lyudmila said. "Nice doll."

"Hello," Patchouli replied dryly. "I'm sure Alice will tell you all about it."

"Hardly. I need some trade secrets," Alice said brushing her head aside. "And good morning to you all."

"Good morning," Kseniya replied. Helena managed a greeting mutter. The two magicians walked over to sit at the table, and Alice's smaller dolls dropped a basket of oranges on it. Helena grabbed one of the fruits, and she saw Shizuka flicker into existence long enough to take one as well.

Koakuma wandered out of the kitchen with some plates. "First set of eggs are up! Bacon will be a bit longer." She placed one in front of each of the younger girls. Helena took a break from trying to free her orange from its peel to start in on the breakfast.

Marisa was out a little while later with another set of eggs and the promised bacon. As the group set into eating the gold eyed witch looked over at Patchouli, "So how the heck did Alice manage to convince you to bring that over?"

Patchouli sighed, "She pointed out the only reason this incident occurred was because we did not consider the political implications of things. Based on that I decided it was best to let her do as she wished."

Lyudmila grabbed a piece of bacon. "Care to explain that so we understand what's going on?"

"Of course," Alice replied. She looked over at Marisa. "Why don't you explain who attacked them and why to start?"

Marisa sighed. "Begin at the beginning, eh?" Helena watched as Marisa grabbed an orange and started rolling it around in her hand. It was odd to see the usually flippant woman showing a nervous habit. "Alright, I suppose you kids should know."

"So I've told you all about the spellcard rules," Marisa said. "They're around for... well more reasons than even I probably understand, but the most important reason they exist is to allow youkai to cause trouble without wiping out the entire human village." Marisa's expression turned serious. "And that's not an idle threat. Youkai outnumber humans at least five to one, ignoring fairies. If one in a thousand youkai decided to kill 'just one human' we'd be out of humans fast, even ignoring the other stuff that'd happen."

Marisa shrugged. "But there's always someone who thinks they can be the one who gets away with murder. True for humans too of course. Anyway about ten years back some tanuki kid thought that no one would care if an orphan got killed and eaten." Marisa's eyes hardened. "He was wrong. I was the one that found him first."

Lyudmila nodded slowly while Kseniya poked at her bacon. Helena looked at the woman. It was odd how Marisa could care so much about killing, and yet seemed so willing to take the role of a killer up. Or maybe that was why she was so willing to take up the mantle of enforcer. Something to think about when she was more awake.

"So that woman was the mother of the murderer?" Lyudmila asked quietly.

"Yes," Patchouli replied. "But while I understand family grudges, her attack was going too far."

Alice sighed. "Because you don't think about the politics." The doll maker shrugged. "Also you aren't an evil scheming murderer. And haven't been around such long enough to think like one."

Patchouli raised an eyebrow but stopped when Koakuma poked the woman with her tail. "You should probably explain before Miss Patchouli starts bragging." Helena couldn't help but snort at that.

"Right," Alice said. "So, what all of you weren't considering is what the people outside of Gensoukyo would think." Alice pointed to each of them in turn. "While I know your families are good people, one of you being killed or even seriously hurt while here would have caused them to demand answers, and probably recompense. In addition it would have made the whole realm of Gensoukyo look bad. Which meant in the unlikely event someone decided to hold the realm accountable, Marisa would get thrown under the bus at the speed of gap."

Marisa's expression grew grim. "Yeah, Yukari wouldn't hesitate to kill anyone if Gensoukyo was threatened. Including herself. I hadn't thought about that." The witch shrugged. "Of course then she'd go teach the person actually responsible what happens when you royally piss off someone with the ability to alter the limits of pain you can suffer and remain conscious, but that'd be cold comfort."

Alice shrugged. "And thus why the giant doll. A reminder that anyone who tries to mess with you kids isn't just attacking Marisa. They're attacking Patchouli and me as well." Alice's eyes narrowed. "And that means the Scarlet Devil Mansion and the Goddess of Makai."

Koakuma shuddered. "And that means waking up with Yumeko's swords in your everywhere usually."

Helena nodded slowly. Alice's speech made a lot of sense. It wouldn't stop everyone out there, but a solid threat sometimes made a big difference. Especially around home. It was why she wore a witch hat after all.

Marisa sighed. "Ugh I hate all this layered thinking nonsense. Patchy tell me I can blast something to fix this."

"Sorry. I looked," Patchouli replied. "I did think of something else to pass the time though. Something that might be very interesting given recent events. Koa, if you would please?"

Helena leaned forward to see what was happening as the little devil pulled out a pack of cards and handed them over to Patchouli. Lyudmila looked over as well, then sniffed disdainfully. "Tarot cards? Really?"

"They're more effective in the hands of a Kabbalist," Patchouli replied as she shuffled the deck. "I had them custom made recently as well, so that helps. Using a deck that doesn't match your view of reality never brings good results."

"Wouldn't water be better though?" Kseinya asked.

Alice shook her head. "Not for things that don't exist physically."

"So what are you going to look for?" Helena asked.

Patchouli finished shuffling and then held out the deck in front of Helena. "Your innate talents."

"Patchy, Magician innate talents tend to be boring as hell," Marisa stated simply. "You're the only one of us with a talent more meaningful than 'using magic.'"

"Yes, but I think these three might be the exceptions to the rule," Patchouli replied with a smile. The purple clad witch looked at Helena. "Give it a few shuffles."

Helena looked at the deck then shrugged and shuffled it three times. Might as well play along. "So, did you remove the minor arcana for this little exercise or will we have to look up what all the minor ones do?"

"Please," Patchouli took the deck back. "If you couldn't get a major arcana for the first pull you wouldn't be a real witch." Helena watched the rest of the table collectively roll their eyes and suppressed a chuckle. "Besides I already know the card on the top."

Patchouli flipped the card over to reveal the Wheel of Fortune, reversed. The Furies grinned at Helena from atop the wheel, while the Norns lay beneath. Patchouli nodded and flipped over two more cards. One had a woman in a blue uniform wielding the scale and sword of justice, the other showed a soldier pierced through with ten swords.

Patchouli tapped each card in turn. "The wheel of fortune reversed, with Justice and the Ten of Swords. Your power is the power to alter the fortune of others towards destruction based on your sense of justice and feelings of betrayal. Or in other words, you create curses."

Helena looked up at Patchouli. "Um, curses are easy. Everyone can do that."

"Everyone can cast a curse." Patchouli held up a finger. "Taking the anger, resentment and ill luck of the world and summoning it is easy. Generating ill luck from your hate? That is a unique skill, something most witches do not have."

Helena raised an eyebrow, the paused as she saw the older witches all nodding. "Wait, you're serious? That's a thing?"

"Yeah. Patchy's right. Bad luck is actually conserved. There's only slightly more bad luck than good," Marisa said. "That spell should have taken you an hour. No offense or anything, but you aren't that powerful yet. I assumed your unnatural speed was because you were making a divine curse, because gods can create good or bad luck out of nothing. Apparently you can too."

Helena mused on that. It seemed kinda cool, if limited.

Lyudmila shook her head. "So every time Helena casts a curse, she makes the world a more unlucky place?"

"Until some other divine spirit or magician cleans it up? Yes," Alice said.

Helena shrugged. "If the world doesn't want to be more unlucky it shouldn't piss me off."

Lyudmila and Kseniya blinked while Koakuma giggled into her hand. "Kinda creepy Helena," Kseniya noted. Helena just shrugged. She was too tired for philosophy.

"Well I see sociopathy is alive and well in the next generation," Alice said with a sigh. "Not I suppose that I have the right to talk. So let's move on. What powers do the other girls have Patchouli?"

Patchouli shuffled the deck and handed it to Lyudmila. "Since I like to prove my assertions we'll let them draw first." Lyudmila looked at the deck with skepticism, but shuffled once and cut the deck before handing it back to Patchouli.

This time Patchouli flipped over all three cards in rapid succession. The first was the Magician reversed, showing Alice working on four dolls each carrying the tarot suits. The next two were the Six of Coins reversed, with the coins falling out of a donation box, and the Three of Staves with a man standing between three wizard staves on a street next to a car.

"The magician reversed, loss of profit, but all for a goal. A reason." Patchouli smiled and looked at Lyudmila. "Your power is to consume magic." Patchouli tapped the magician card. "Of course all magicians consume magic. It's how we live. But just as Remilia is a light eater, you are a heavy eater. You consume more magic than normal, and you can sense the magic you feed upon."

Marisa sat up. "Hey! That must be how she can always tell when youkai are around. And what types of youkai they are too."

Lyudmila seemed surprised as well. "Really? That's not normal?" The Slavic witch grew pensive. "Huh. That's kinda cool. And kinda dangerous. I don't want to eat too much magic."

"It should be fine, so long as you don't develop your talent too much," Alice said. "As you mature, you'll need less magic after all."

"Yes. You should work on controlling and focusing it, rather than strengthening it," Patchouli agreed.

Kseniya poked at the cards. "Why is Alice the magician instead of you?"

Patchouli swept up the cards. "Because Marisa's a thief, and I'm well aware I'm not the Magician. Or at least I wasn't. I think I may need to change the deck again soon. The magician requires youth you see." Patchouli coughed. "And Alice is turning more into the Empress then the Magician."

"That sounded like a shot at my age, but since I know it wasn't I'll let you off with a warning," Alice said.

Patchouli hurriedly shuffled the cards. "Anyway! One last drawing. Though I have a strong suspicion that I know the result here as well."

Kseniya happily grabbed the cards and shuffled them far too many times, before handing them back. Again Patchouli flipped over three cards. The first was the Magician again, but upright. The next two were ace of cups, with its chalice overflowing, and the fool, showing Marisa flying off into the horizon with a sack tied to her broom.

Patchouli bowed as if she'd performed some great trick. "The magician overflowing. The Fool representing the start of the arcana. Kseniya is the opposite of her sister. Where Lyudmila devours magic, she creates it. Probably the reason other mythical creatures are attracted to her rather than cautious."

"That's cool!" Kseniya beemed. Helena nodded in agreement. It seemed like an impressive power indeed.

"Yeah, it's great until the furniture starts animating," Marisa replied. "That's another power you want to control rather than strengthen. Too much lingering magic makes life weird, and often dangerous."

Alice nodded. "You should do fine of course. Though it's interesting you two sisters have matching powers like that."

Koakuma shook her head. "Honestly it's almost expected for siblings that close in age. The only way it could have been more likely is if they were twins." The demon pouted. "And is no one going to ask why Marisa's The Fool?"

"I thought it was obvious," Lyudmila said.

"Yeah, seems standard for Patchy," Marisa agreed.

Alice smirked. "She can be tsundere as well. Though I'm surprised at how conniving you are Koakuma."

Everyone else blinked as Patchouli blushed and swept up the cards. "Ahem! In any case, I've done my diversion for today."

Alice nodded, and stood. "I'll set my dolls to fixing the door. Once that's done I should be available if you have any questions about the Goliath doll." Kseniya perked up at that, and Lyudmila seemed interested as well.

"Tomorrow back to scheduled events. We'll be breaking into the mountain. So take it easy today," Marisa said. "And now I'm going to pass out." The woman immediately placed her head on the table and closed her eyes with a sigh. Helena understood the sentiment.

"I think I'm going to read manga until I fall asleep myself," Helena said as she stood to head over to the bookshelf.

Lyudmila nodded. "Have fun."

Helena smiled in return before turning to the shelves. Hopefully she'd make it to a good stopping point before zoning out.

As she picked out the books though she did wonder if Marisa was joking about breaking into the mountain. And what was on the mountain that made breaking into it worthwhile?

**Author's Note:**

> The canon train derails even more.
> 
> So yeah I hinted this was going to be a thing, and I've decided to occasionally throw words at it. It'll be a bunch of connected scenes, more a three fairies manga rather then a giant plot thing, and it'll be fairly sporadically updated, but I have three or four ideas that should solidify into additions at some point.
> 
> One of the interesting things I've noticed is that there aren't a lot of Touhou fics on outsiders who know the rules, but not the people. Most OC are either non mages or crossover characters bringing a ton of setting baggage with them. It's very rare to see things from the view of villagers working with the cast or magically inclined people from other cultural hideaways. With Helena, Lyudmilla and Kseniya I wanted to work into that second space. A group of people who accept the rules of magic, but are from a different culture. I think that viewpoint kinda find some ideas that haven't gotten their time under the Yatagarasu's blessing.


End file.
